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THE GOLDEN WEB
BY ANTHONY PARTRIDGE
_Author of "Passers-By," "The Kingdom of Earth" "The Distributors,"
etc._
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
WILLIAM KIRKPATRICK
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1911
_Copyright, 1909, 1911,_
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published, January 1911
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
[Illustration: He held the telegram in front of her face. "Read," he
said.]
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE
I A LIFE FOR SALE
II THE PURCHASE
III A FAMILY AFFAIR
IV A MURDER
V A DEBT INCURRED
VI AN IMPERIOUS DEMAND
VII LOVE OR INTEREST?
VIII AN AWFUL RESPONSIBILITY
IX WINIFRED ROWAN
X AT THE THEATRE
XI AN APPEAL
XII RUBY SINCLAIR
XIII AN INFORMAL TEA-PARTY
XIV AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
XV THE EFFECT OF A STORM
XVI A REPRIEVE
XVII A NEW DANGER
XVIII AN EXPENSIVE KEY
XIX THE SEARCH
XX IN DOUBT
XXI RUBY IS DISAPPOINTED
BOOK TWO
I FREE TO DIE
II A LAPSE OF MEMORY
III A PAINFUL INTERVIEW
IV A QUESTION
V MUTUAL INFORMATION
VI AN OPPORTUNE ARRIVAL
VII HEFFEROM IS OPTIMISTIC
VIII A BOLD MOVE
IX LORD NUNNELEY IS FRANK
X A BROKEN ENGAGEMENT
XI BITTER WORDS
XII A STRANGE BETROTHAL
XIII DESPERATION
XIV AN AFTERNOON'S SHOPPING
XV A FRIEND
XVI PASSION
XVII A DESPAIRING CALL
XVIII WINIFRED IS TRAPPED
XIX MISS SINCLAIR'S OFFER
XX THROUGH THE MILL
XXI ALL AS IT SHOULD BE
ILLUSTRATIONS
He held the telegram in front of her face. "Read," he said
Lady Olive came slowly forward to meet him
"There was some matter which you wished to discuss, then?" Deane asked
"I hate him!" she declared to herself. "I hate him now more than ever!"
THE GOLDEN WEB
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I
A LIFE FOR SALE
The contrast in personal appearance between the two men, having regard
to their relative positions, was a significant thing. The caller, who
had just been summoned from the waiting-room, and was standing before
the other's table, hat in hand, a little shabby, with ill-brushed hair
and doubtful collar, bore in his countenance many traces of the wild and
irregular life which had reduced him at this moment to the position of
suppliant. His complexion was pale almost to ghastliness, and in his
deep-set, sunken eyes there was more than a suggestion of recklessness.
He was so nervous that his face twitched as he stood there waiting, and
the fingers which held his hat trembled. His lips were a little parted,
his breathing was scarcely healthy. There was something about his whole
appearance indicative of failure. The writing upon his forehead was the
writing of despair.
The man before whom he stood was of an altogether different type. His
features were strong and regular, his complexion slightly bronzed, as
though from exposure to the sun and wind. He had closely-cropped black
hair, keen gray eyes, and a determined chin. He sat before a table on
which were all the modern appurtenances of a business man in close touch
with passing events. A telephone was at his elbow, his secretary was
busy at a smaller table in the corner of the room, a typist was waiting
respectfully in the background. His confidential clerk was leaning over
his chair, notebook in hand, receiving in a few terse sentences
instructions for the morrow's operations. Stirling Deane, although he
was barely forty years old, was at the head of a great mining
corporation. He had been the one man selected for the position when the
most important and far-reaching amalgamation of recent days had taken
place. And this although he came of a family whose devotion to business
had always been blended with a singular aptitude for and preeminence in
sports. Deane himself, until the last few years, had played cricket for
his county, had hunted two days a week, and had by no means shown that
whole-hearted passion for money-making which was rife enough in the
circles amid which he moved.
He wound up his instructions, and dismissed his clerk with a few curt
and final words. Then he turned round in his chair and faced his
visitor.
"I am sorry to have kept you, Rowan," he said. "This is always rather a
busy day in the city, and a busy time."
His visitor, who had been waiting for an hour in an ante-room, and was
then esteemed fortunate to be accorded an interview, looked around him
with a little smile.
"So you've prospered, Deane," he said.
"Naturally," the other answered. "I always meant to. And you, Rowan?"
The visitor shook his head. "I have tried many things," he said; "all
failures,--disposition or luck, I suppose. What is it, I wonder, that
keeps some men down while others climb?"
Deane shrugged his shoulders. "Disposition," he said, "is only an
appendage, and luck doesn't exist. In nine cases out of ten, if a man's
will is strong enough, he climbs."
Rowan nodded gloomily. "Perhaps that's it," he assented. "I never had
any will, or if I had, it didn't seem worth while to use it."
"Take a seat," said Deane. "You don't look fit to stand. What can I do
for you? We shall be interrupted in a few moments."
"I want something to do," Rowan said.
"I can't give it to you," answered Deane, firmly but not unkindly.
"You don't beat about the bush," the other declared, with a hard little
laugh.
"Why should I?" Deane asked. "It would only waste our time, and be,
after all, a mistaken kindness. There isn't a man about my place who
hasn't grown up under my own personal observation. It's an important
business this, Rowan. I daren't risk a single weak link. To be frank
with you,--and you see I am being frank,--I'd sooner pay your salary
than have you here."
"Give me a letter to someone else, then," Rowan begged. "I'm just back
from Africa, broken."
"I can't do that," Deane answered. "I know you well. I like you. We have
been friends. We have been together in difficulties. More than once you
have been in a way useful to me. I have every disposition to serve you.
But you were never made for business, or any form of regular work. I
would not offer you a place in my own office, and I cannot pass you on
to my friends. What else can I do for you?"
Rowan looked into his hat, and laughed a little bitterly. "What the
devil else is there anyone can do for me?" he demanded.
"I can lend you some money," Deane said shortly.
"I shall take it," Rowan answered; "but it will be spent pretty soon,
and I doubt whether you'll ever get it back. I want a chance to make a
fresh start."
Deane shook his head. "I can't help you," he said,--"not in that sort of
way, at any rate. If you wanted to settle down in the country, I'd try
and find you a place there."
"No good," Rowan answered. "I want to make money, and I want to make it
quick."
The telephone bell rang, and Deane was busy for several moments
answering questions and giving instructions. Then he turned once more to
his visitor.
"Rowan," he said, "you talk like all the others who come down into the
city expecting to find it a sort of Eldorado. I can do nothing for you.
How much money shall I lend you? Stop!" he said, holding out his hand.
"I don't want to seem unkind, but I am a busy man. I don't want to lend
you ten pounds to-day, and have you come and borrow another ten pounds
next week, and another the week after. You and I went through some rough
times together. We've heard the bullets sing. We've known what a licking
was like, and we've shouted ourselves hoarse with joy when the good time
came. I don't forget these things, man. I don't want you for a moment to
believe that I have forgotten them. Ask me for any reasonable sum, and
I'll give it you. But afterwards we shake hands and part, at any rate so
far as the city is concerned. You understand?"
Rowan leaned forward in his chair. He wetted his dry lips nervously with
his tongue. The look of ill-health in his features was almost painfully
manifest. The writing which it is not possible to mistake was on his
face.
"Look here, Deane," he said hoarsely, "don't think I am ungrateful.
You've put the matter straight to me like a man, and, if needs be, I'll
ask you for a good round sum and go, and I'll take my oath you'll never
see me again. But listen. I am in a bad way. I was in the hospital last
week, and they told me a few things."
"I am sorry," said Deane. "You shall go away and recuperate. When you're
feeling stronger you can think about some work."
Rowan shook his head. "That isn't it," he said. "I'm a sick man, but I'm
not that kind of invalid. I have somewhere about twelve months to
live--no more. I want, somehow or other, before I die, to make a little
money. I don't want a fortune--nothing of that sort--but I want to make
just a little."
"You have a wife?" Deane asked quietly.
Rowan shook his head. "A sister. Poor little girl, she's wearing herself
out typing in an office, and I can't bear the thought of leaving her all
alone with nothing to fall back upon."
Deane drummed with his fingers upon the table. His manner was not
unsympathetic, but betrayed the slight impatience of a man of affairs
discussing an unpractical subject with an unpractical person.
"My dear Rowan," he said, "don't you see that your very illness makes it
absurd to imagine that you can take a position and save any amount of
money worth mentioning in it, in twelve months? The idea is absurd."
"I suppose it sounds so," Rowan admitted. "But listen, Deane. You know I
have many weak points, but I am not a coward. I like big risks, and I am
always willing to take them. The doctor gives me twelve months--that
means, I suppose, about seven months during which I shall be able to get
about, and five months of slow torture in a hospital. I mention this
again so that you can understand exactly how much I value my life. Isn't
there any work you could put me on to where the risk was great--the
greater the better--but if I succeeded I could make a reasonable sum of
money? Think!"
Deane shook his head. "My dear Rowan," he said, "we are not in Africa
now, you know. We are in a civilized city, where life and death have no
other than their own intrinsic worth."
"You are sure?" persisted Rowan. "I don't mind what I do," he added, in
a lower tone. "I've lived in wild countries, and I've lived a wild life.
My conscience is elastic enough. I'd take on anything in the world which
meant money. You have great interests under your control. You must have
enemies. Sometimes there are enterprises into which a man in your
position would enter willingly enough if he could find a partner who
would be as silent as the grave, and who would risk everything--I mean
that--not only his life, but everything, on the chance of success."
Deane shook his head slowly, and then stopped. A sudden change came into
his face. He had the air of a man absorbed with an unexpected thought. A
flickering ray of sunshine had come struggling through the dusty window
from the court outside. It found its way across Deane's desk, with its
piles of papers and documents. It rested for a moment upon his dark,
thoughtful face. Rowan watched him eagerly. Was it his fancy, or was
there indeed a shadow there greater than the responsibilities of his
position might warrant?
CHAPTER II
THE PURCHASE
Deane looked across the room towards his secretary. "Give me five
minutes alone, Ellison," he said,--"you and Miss Ansell there. See that
I am not interrupted."
The young man got up at once and left the room, followed by the typist.
Deane waited until the door was closed. Then he turned once more to his
visitor.
"Listen, Rowan," he said. "Do I understand you rightly? Do you mean that
you would be willing to undertake a commission which you would certainly
find unpleasant, and perhaps dangerous?"
"I do mean that," Rowan declared, beating the palm of one hand with his
clenched fist. "I am a desperate man. I have no time for long service,
for industry, for perseverance, for any form of success which is to be
won by orthodox means. I am like a man who has mortgaged every farthing
he has in the world to take a thirty-five to one chance on a number.
Don't you understand? I want money, and I can't wait. I haven't time.
Give me a chance of something big. Remember what I have told you. Twelve
months of suffering life is worth little enough in the balance."
"You misunderstand me a little," Deane said slowly. "What I am going to
suggest to you may seem difficult enough, and, under the circumstances,
unpleasant, but there is no actual risk--at least," he corrected
himself, "there should be none."
Rowan laughed scornfully. "For Heaven's sake, don't pick your words so
carefully," he begged. "If the thing is big enough, I am not afraid. If
it is dishonest, say so. I am not a pickpocket, but I am past scruples."
Once more Deane was silent for several moments. It was a chance,
this,--just a chance. He looked out of the window, and he seemed to see
in swift panorama all the splendid details of his rise to power. He saw
himself as the central figure of that panorama--respected, honored,
envied, wherever he went, east or west. It was a life, his, for a man to
be proud of. There was no one who had a word to say against him,--no one
who did not envy him his rapid climb up the great ladder. He carried
power in both hands, so that when he moved even amongst the great people
of the world a place was found for him. He realized in that one moment
what it might mean to lose these things, and he drew a little breath. He
must fight to the end, make use of any means that came to his hand. It
was a chance this, only a chance, but he would take it!
"Listen, Rowan," he said, turning once more to the man who had been
watching him so eagerly, "I am taking you at your word. I am believing
that you mean exactly what you say."
"God knows I do!" Rowan muttered.
"Very well, then," Deane continued, "I want you to understand this. The
company of which I am managing director owns, as you may have heard, the
greatest gold-fields in the world. Our chief possession, though, is the
Little Anna Gold-Mine, which was once, as you may have heard, my
property, and for which the corporation paid me a very large sum of
money. Did you ever hear anything of the history of the Little Anna
Gold-Mine, Rowan?"
Rowan nodded. "It was a deserted claim which you and some others had a
shy at. Dick Murray was one of them. That brute Sinclair put you on to
it."
Deane nodded. "You have spoken the truth, Rowan," he said. "It was a
deserted claim. Four of us took possession, but the other three never
knew what I knew. I bought up their shares one by one. I won't go into
the matter of law now. I simply want you to understand this. The mine
grew and prospered. What it has become you know. I sold it to this
corporation, as I wished to have no outside interests, and the price
paid me was close upon a million sterling. Three days ago, in this room,
the man whom you have just spoken of--Richard Sinclair--produced
documents, and tried to convince me that he was the real owner of the
Little Anna Gold-Mine, that it had never been deserted, and that our
taking possession of it was nothing more nor less than an illegal jump."
Rowan was plainly amazed. "But it was Sinclair," he exclaimed, "who gave
you the tip."
Deane nodded. "That," he said, "may have been part of his scheme. He
hadn't the money or the patience to work it himself, and it may have
occurred to him that if he could get someone else to do all the work,
believing that they had acquired the mine, it might be worth his
claiming afterwards. I have weighed it all up," Deane continued. "I have
been to some mining lawyers, and I have spent a small fortune in cabling
to the Cape. The conclusion I have come to is this. If Sinclair
prosecutes his claim--and he means business--and goes to law, there is
just a reasonable chance that he might win."
"A reasonable chance," Rowan repeated.
"It isn't only that, though," continued Deane. "There are other things
to be taken into consideration. We don't want a lawsuit. Several of our
smaller mines are doing rather badly just now, and we have been spending
an immense amount of money upon developments. Any suspicion as to the
validity of our title to the Little Anna Mine would be simply disastrous
at the present moment. Our shares would have a tremendous drop, just at
the time when we are least prepared for it."
"Where do I come in?" Rowan asked quietly.
"Sinclair," Deane said, "has only been in the country three days. He has
no friends, he drinks most of the day, and he is staying at the
Universal Hotel, where I imagine that he spends most of his time at the
American bar. Now I can't treat with the fellow, Rowan. That's the
trouble. If I were to show the least sign of weakness, the game would be
up. My only chance was bluff. I laughed in his face and turned him out
of the office. But bluff doesn't alter facts. You and he are old
acquaintances. I know very well that you never hit it off together,
although I never knew what was the cause of your quarrel. However,
there's nothing to prevent your going to see him. He's in that sort of
maudlin state when he'd welcome anybody who'd drink with him and let him
talk. That is where you come in, Rowan. You can drink with him, and
listen. Find out whether this is a put-up thing or whether he believes
in it."
Rowan nodded. "Anything else?" he asked in a low tone.
"There is no reason," Deane continued, "why you should not, if he gets
confidential, open up negotiations on your own account."
"He has some documents, I suppose?" Rowan asked.
"His claim to our mine," Deane answered, "is contained in a single
paper, which he told me never left his person. You were a lawyer once,
Rowan. You know how to argue, to handle facts, to make a bargain. The
return of that document to me would be worth ten thousand pounds."
Rowan's breathing seemed suddenly to have become worse. His lips were
parted, there was a strange glitter in his eyes. "Ten thousand pounds!"
he muttered.
"It is a great deal of money, I know," Deane said, "but understand this,
Rowan, once and for all. If this enterprise appeals to you, you must
undertake it absolutely and entirely at your own risk. Above all things,
it is important that neither Sinclair nor anyone else in the world
should ever dream that I had been behind any offer you might make, or
any course of action which you might pursue. All that I say to you is
that I am willing to give ten thousand pounds for that document."
"Ten thousand pounds!" Rowan muttered. "It would be enough--more than
enough."
"If you fail," continued Deane, "and find yourself in trouble, I know
nothing of you. I shall not raise a finger to help you. I demand from
you your word of honor that you do not mention my name, that you deal
with Sinclair simply as a speculative financier disposed to be his
friend. Remember that the slightest association of my name with yours
would give him the clue to the whole thing, and would mean ruin here. On
the other hand, before you go, if you tell me that you are going heart
and soul into this enterprise, I shall give you five hundred pounds.
Some of this you will need for clothes, to make a presentable
appearance, and to be able to entertain Sinclair, and play your part as
a capitalist. If you fail, you can keep the balance as a loan or a gift,
whichever you like. Now you can take your choice. I am placing a good
deal of confidence in you, but I think that I know my man."
Rowan struck the end of the table with his hand. "Yes, you do, Deane!"
he declared, looking at him with kindling eyes. "You do know him,
indeed. If I were to die to-morrow, Dick Sinclair is the one man in the
world I should die hating. He served me a shabby trick once, and I've
never forgotten it. Perhaps," Rowan added,--"perhaps I may now turn the
tables upon him."
"No mention of my name, mind," Deane repeated emphatically.
Rowan held out his hand. "I take my chance, Deane," he said, "and on my
honor I'll play the game."
CHAPTER III
A FAMILY AFFAIR
A few hours later, Stirling Deane sat at a small round dining-table,
side by side with the father of the girl to whom he had been engaged for
exactly three days. His hostess, the Countess of Nunneley, and her
daughter, Lady Olive, had only just left them. It had been a dinner
absolutely _en famille_.
"Draw up your chair, Deane, and try some of this port," Lord Nunneley
said.
"Thank you," replied Deane, "I'll finish my champagne, if I may."
"Just as you like," his host answered. "I notice you are very careful
never to mix, Deane. Perhaps you are right. There's nothing like being
absolutely fit, and you fellows in the city must have a tremendous lot
on your minds sometimes. I suppose, however prosperous you are, you
never have a day without a certain amount of anxiety?"
"Never," Deane assented quietly.
Lord Nunneley, who had a great reputation as a peer of marked sporting
proclivities, crossed his legs, and, leaning back in his chair, lit a
cigarette.
"I never thought," he continued, "that I should be glad to give Olive to
anyone--to anyone--you won't mind if I say it--outside our own immediate
circle. Of course, I know your people were all right. I've ridden to
hounds with your father many a time, but when a family drifts into the
city, one naturally loses sight of them. You will find me a model
father-in-law, though, Deane. I never borrow money, I wouldn't be a
director of a public company for anything in the world, and I haven't a
single relation for whom I want a berth."
Deane smiled. His manner was natural enough, but only he knew how
difficult he found it to continue this sort of conversation--to keep his
attention fixed upon the somewhat garrulous utterances of his
prospective father-in-law.
"You are very wise to steer clear of all that sort of thing, sir," he
said. "The city is no place for men who have not been brought up to it,
and the days of guinea-pig directors are over."
Lord Nunneley nodded. "My lawyers have been making inquiries about you
to-day, Deane," he said. "You insisted on my doing so, so I let them,
although it was more for your satisfaction than mine. According to their
report, you seem to have rather underestimated your position. They tell
me that yours is one of the richest corporations in the mining world,
and that you yourself are very wealthy."
Deane inclined his head slowly. He leaned across the table, and helped
himself to a cigarette. A few nights ago he could have listened to such
a speech with a feeling of genuine satisfaction. Now, everything seemed
changed. The rock upon which he had stood seemed to have become a
shifting quicksand. Dick Sinclair was a blackmailer and a thief, he told
himself, with a fierce desire to escape from the shadow which seemed
somehow to have settled upon him. The document he had brandished was not
worth the paper it was written on! His attack, even if he ventured to
make it, could prove no more venomous than the sting of an insect. Yet
the shadow remained. Deane, for the first time, possibly, in his life,
felt that his nerve had temporarily gone. It was all that he could do to
sit still and listen to his companion's easy talk.
"Of course, I am glad enough for Olive to marry a rich man, especially
as her tastes seem to run that way," Lord Nunneley continued; "but I
tell you frankly that I shouldn't have fancied a marriage for money pure
and simple. I am not a wealthy man, but I can keep my places going
pretty comfortably, and I don't know the meaning of a mortgage. Olive
will have her thousand a year settled upon her for life when she
marries, and something more when I die. In a sense, it's nothing, of
course, but it will help pay for her frocks."
"I am sure you are very generous," Deane murmured. "I had not even
considered the question of dowry so far as Olive was concerned."
Lord Nunneley nodded. "As I remarked just now," he went on, "I should
have hated the idea of a marriage for money pure and simple. I have seen
you ride to hounds, Deane, as well as any man I know, and there's no one
I'd sooner trust to bring down his birds at an awkward corner than you.
That sort of thing counts, you know. I always meant to have a sportsman
for a son-in-law, and I am thankful that your city life hasn't spoiled
you for the other things. By the way, how old are you, Deane?"
"I shall be forty my next birthday," Deane answered.
His host nodded. "Well," he said, "you won't want to go wearing yourself
out making more millions, surely? Why don't you retire, and buy an
estate?"
"I have thought of it," Deane answered. "I mean to take things easier,
at any rate, after my marriage."
Lord Nunneley sipped his wine reflectively. "I have never done a stroke
of work all my life," he remarked, "beyond looking after my agent's
accounts, which I have never been able to understand, and trying a
little scientific farming, by which I have invariably lost money. I do
respect a man, though, who has been through the mill and held his own,
and against whom no one has a word to say. At the same time, Deane," he
added, "don't stick at it too long. If you'll forgive my mentioning it,
you don't look quite the man you did even two or three years ago."
"I am a little run down," Deane said. "I am going to take a holiday in a
few weeks."
"You are coming to us in Scotland, of course," said Lord Nunneley. "But
holiday or no holiday, take my advice, and even if you have to sacrifice
a bit, don't stay in harness too long. The money you can't spend isn't
worth a snap of the fingers. You and Olive could live on the interest of
what you have, and there's scarcely a thing you need deny yourselves."
Deane hesitated for a moment. "That is true enough," he said, "but it is
never quite so easy, when one is involved in things as I am, to escape
from them. The Devil Spider spins a golden web to catch us mortals, and
it's hard work to get out of it. I am afraid that my shareholders would
consider themselves very much aggrieved if I sent in my resignation
without at least a year's warning."
"A year," Lord Nunneley remarked reflectively. "Well, I should feel
quite satisfied if I thought that you were going to chuck it then. Don't
misunderstand me, Deane," he went on. "Please don't for a moment believe
that I am such an arrant snob as to mind having a son-in-law who's
engaged in business. I look upon yours as a jolly fine position, and I
can assure you that I have a sincere respect for a man who has attained
to it at your age. It is simply that I fancy you are carrying a much
heavier burden than you sometimes realize--simply for your own sake and
Olive's that I would like to hear of your taking things more easily."
"I understand," Deane said,--"I quite understand. You are really very
kind, Lord Nunneley! Even if it is impossible for me to escape just for
the moment, I can assure you that I shall take the first opportunity of
doing so."
The butler, with an apologetic bow, came softly across the room and
delivered a message. Lady Olive was going to a party, and would be glad
if Mr. Deane could come into the drawing-room at once.
CHAPTER IV
A MURDER
Deane, with the air of one who was an _habitue_ to the house, found his
way to the drawing-room, where Lady Olive was seated before the piano,
playing softly. She rose as he entered, and came to meet him.
"I have barely a quarter of an hour, Stirling," she said. "It was too
absurd of you to be sitting there talking to father all the time. Come
and say nice things to me. Mother has gone upstairs to put on her
tiara."
He held her at arm's length for a moment, looking at her. She was not
very tall, but she was graceful, and she carried herself as the women of
her family had done since the days of Elizabeth. Her face was a little
cold, except when she smiled, and her eyes were large and brilliant.
There was about her toilette and her features a sort of trim perfection,
which left no room for criticism. She was considered, amongst those whom
she called her friends, handsome rather than beautiful, and ambitious
rather than affectionate. Nevertheless, she blushed most becomingly when
Deane stooped to kiss her, and her face certainly seemed to lose for the
time its somewhat cold expression.
"You are going to the Waldrons', I suppose?" he remarked. "You look
charming, dear."
She made a little grimace. "It's too bad that you won't be there.
However, in a few days that will be all right. Now that our engagement
is announced, everyone will send you cards, of course, for everywhere I
go."
He smiled a little doubtfully. "You won't expect too much of me in that
way, will you?" he asked. "My afternoons, for instance, are nearly
always occupied."
"You will not find me exacting," she said, with a reassuring nod. "I
don't expect you to play the part of social butterfly at all, and
although we must be seen together sometimes, of course, I haven't the
least desire to keep you dangling at my heels. Tell me, what has father
been talking to you about?"
"He has been urging me to leave the city," Deane said, "and buy an
estate."
Lady Olive looked thoughtful. "That is very interesting," she said.
"What have you to say about it?" he asked.
"It depends," she answered, "very much upon circumstances. I am not sure
that I approve of a man having nothing whatever to do. Besides, I have
no idea how rich you are, Stirling. I think I ought to warn you that I
am very extravagant."
"I am delighted to hear it," he assured her. "I should dislike a wife
who wouldn't spend my money."
They were sitting side by side upon a sofa, and she toyed with her fan
for several moments. Then she held out her right hand to him, and
allowed it to remain in his grasp. For Lady Olive, this was distinctly a
lover-like proceeding. She was not at all sure in her own mind whether
such a liberty was judicious, having been brought up always to consider
any display of affection as utterly _bourgeois_.
"It seems a curious question to ask," she said thoughtfully; "but, after
all, it would be only affectation to pretend that I was not interested.
Tell me what your income is--about, Stirling?"
"In round figures," he answered, "it is to-day, I should think, a trifle
over twenty-five thousand a year."
She nodded approvingly, and yet without a great deal of enthusiasm. "We
ought to be able to make that do," she said. "Do you mean that it would
be as much as that if you gave up business? Perhaps you could give it up
partially, and keep a few directorships, or something of that sort?"
"I could not give up my work at all," he told her, "for two years. I get
a very large income from my company, and I have an agreement with them.
Besides, my own interests are so woven up with theirs that I could not
run the risk of having anyone at the head of affairs in whom I had not
complete confidence."
She nodded. "That is quite reasonable," she admitted. "You get holidays,
of course?"
"Naturally," he answered.
There was a short silence. Lady Olive was half inclined to wonder why,
having possessed himself of her hand, he made none of the other
overtures which she had always understood were usual. Deane, however,
was in no humor for love-making. She had represented to him, only a few
days ago, a part of his future life which was altogether inevitable, and
which he could easily come to find pleasant enough, but just now there
seemed to be a barrier between them. Notwithstanding Lord Nunneley's
kindness, and his wife's approval, he knew very well that it was not
only Stirling Deane who had been accepted as a suitor. It was the
millionaire, the man of great affairs, the man of untarnished
reputation. Dick Sinclair's threats were still ringing in his ears. He
somehow felt that he was not even playing the game to be sitting there,
holding the hand of this most exclusive young lady.
"You are a little quiet to-night," she remarked.
"Perhaps," he answered, smiling, "I am a little shy."
She was inclined to take his words seriously. There had been moments
before their engagement when he had certainly looked at her in a very
different manner, when she had realized that if she really did say "yes"
to him, she might find herself in danger of having to submit to
something a little more vigorous than the ordinary love-making she knew
anything of. She had even made up her mind, with a faint blush, to
submit to it,--had grown to expect it. Somehow, although she would have
found the admission distinctly humiliating, she was a trifle
disappointed.
"I wonder," she whispered, looking down upon the carpet, "if you
need--if you really need encouragement."
She felt a sudden thrill as his arm touched her, a sudden sense of his
enveloping presence. Then the door opened, and she withdrew herself
quickly. The Countess came into the room, a curious replica of her
daughter, except that her hair was gray, and the light in her eyes a
little steelier.
"So sorry you are not going with us," she remarked to Deane. "Inquire if
the brougham is waiting," she continued, turning to her maid. "No, don't
bother, Stirling," she added, as he moved toward the door. "We are
really in plenty of time."
Lord Nunneley came in, with the evening paper in his hand.
"Is there any news, George?" his wife asked.
He shook his head. "There never is," he answered. "The evening papers
aren't worth looking at now. Shocking murder, by the bye, at one of the
big hotels."
Deane turned slowly round. "A murder?" he repeated.
His host nodded as he lit a cigarette. "Fellow just arrived in the
country," he remarked,--"supposed to have had a lot of money in his
pocket. Found dead in his room at about seven o'clock to-night."
"Do you remember the name of the hotel?" asked Deane.
Lord Nunneley glanced at the paper which he still held in his hand. "The
Universal," he answered,--"that huge new place, you know, near the
Strand."
"Was the murderer caught?" Deane asked.
"Arrested just as he was leaving the hotel," Lord Nunneley
answered,--"at least they arrested the man they thought had done it.
Here's the paper, if you have a taste for horrors."
Deane stood perfectly still for several minutes. Lady Olive was
buttoning her gloves, and did not notice him. Her mother was standing at
the further end of the room, helping herself to coffee. Lord Nunneley
alone was conscious of the change in his guest's expression.
"Nothing wrong, I hope, Deane?" he asked. "You didn't know the fellow,
by any chance, did you?"
Deane shook his head. He spoke very quietly and very distinctly. Except
that he was unusually pale, his manner showed no signs of emotion. And
yet, all the time he felt that he was being stifled! In his ears was the
singing of tragedy!
"No!" he said. "I never heard of him in my life."
He crossed the room to help Lady Olive with her cloak.
"Stay and have a smoke with me," Lord Nunneley suggested. "I am going
round to the club in about an hour's time, and then I am going to pick
these people up at a ball somewhere."
"You are very kind," Deane answered. "To tell you the truth, I have just
remembered a very important letter which I ought to have written. If you
will excuse me, I am going to hurry away at once. I should like to catch
my secretary before he leaves."
Lord Nunneley nodded. "You will have to get him to give it up," he said
to his daughter. "Fancy having to write a business letter at ten o'clock
at night! Perfect slavery!"
"Shall I see you to-morrow, Stirling?" Lady Olive asked, walking with
him into the hall.
"We'll lunch, if you like," he said. "Or shall I come to tea? I shall
not be busy much after noon."
"I am not quite sure what I have to do to-morrow," she answered, "but I
think that I would rather that you came here. We'll meet sometime,
anyhow. Good-bye!"
He raised her fingers to his lips. "Enjoy yourself," he said.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Absolutely a duty dance," she murmured,
waving her hand. "I know that I shall be bored to death! By the bye,
Stirling, don't forget that in about three weeks' time I want you to
give a luncheon party at the Carlton to Julia and her husband, and some
of the others."
"As soon as you like," Deane answered.
"Julia won't be back till then," Lady Olive said. "Au revoir!"
CHAPTER V
A DEBT INCURRED
A little stream of people came suddenly out from the dark,
forbidding-looking building into the sun-lit street. The tragedy was
over, and one by one they took their several ways, and were swallowed up
in the restless life of the great city. Yet there was not one of them
who did not carry in his face some trace of those hours of gloomy
excitement, some reminiscent shadow of the tragedy which had spread
itself out into passionate life before their eyes. The most callous was
conscious of a few minutes' unusual gravity. Some of the more
impressionable carried with them the memory of that hot, crowded room,
the air of tense excitement, the slowly spoken, solemn words, throughout
that day and many days to come.
"And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"
There was one man who issued from the building and made his way into the
street, who seemed altogether dazed. His lips were drawn tightly
together, his eyes were set in an unseeing stare. It was not until he
had walked fifty yards or so that he seemed even to realize where he
was. Then he came to a sudden standstill, and retraced his steps.
Standing outside the building which he had just quitted was a small
electric brougham, in front of which he stopped. He glanced at his
watch. It was a few minutes past one o'clock. All around was the great
stream of city men and clerks, hurrying to their mid-day meal. Once
more, as he stood with the handle in his hand, he looked back down the
dark passage, guarded by a single policeman, through which he had come a
moment or two before. The scene in the little courthouse spread itself
out with almost hideous precision before his reluctant eyes. He saw once
more what is certainly the greatest tragedy which the mechanical side of
our every-day life can offer to the seeker after sensations. He saw a
man stand up and listen to the words pronounced which are to deprive him
of life,--"And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"
Deane turned to his chauffeur. "The Carlton!" he said, and stepped
inside.
The brougham glided away, swung in and out of the traffic, and ran
smoothly along the Embankment, westward. Deane let down both the
windows, took off his hat and placed it on the seat opposite him. Then
he drew a small fine cambric handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his
forehead.
"God in Heaven!" he muttered to himself. "Twelve men, and not one of
them could see the truth. Twelve men, all fools!"
He took a cigarette from a small gold case, and lit it with trembling
fingers. Then he leaned out of the carriage window. "Stop at the
Metropole, Richards," he ordered.
The man was just swinging into Northumberland Avenue, and he pulled up
in front of the hotel. Deane went in hurriedly, and made his way to the
smoking-room, exchanging abrupt greetings with one or two acquaintances.
There he ordered and drank quickly a large brandy-and-soda. When he
retraced his steps, he felt more composed.
"To the Carlton now," he ordered. "Hurry, please. I fancy that I am a
little late."
In the foyer of the restaurant, Lady Olive came slowly forward to meet
him. She was beautifully dressed, and she wore her clothes with the air
of one who has been accustomed to be clad in silk and laces from the
days of her cradle. She had been a beauty for so long that no one
questioned her looks. It seemed even incredible that she was twenty-nine
years old. One realized that she was of the order of women who refuse to
grow old,--women without nerves, unruffled by emotions, women who come
smiling through the years, unconscious devotees of the essential
philosophy. To Deane she had never seemed more desirable than when she
greeted him with a slight uplifting of her eyebrows, and turned to
present him to another man and woman who were standing by.
[Illustration: Lady Olive came slowly forward to meet him.]
"Mr. Deane is going to make the usual excuses, I know," she declared.
"Let us anticipate him, and say nothing about our wait. We won't even
ask whether it was a directors' meeting, or a message from the governor
of the Bank of England. Stirling, this is my cousin, Mary Elstree, and
her husband, Major Elstree--Mr. Deane! The others are somewhere about.
What a tiresome person Julia is! She has drifted away over there with a
lot of people whom I don't know. That is the worst of taking Julia
anywhere. I think that she would discover acquaintances in an A B C
shop. Do find her, Stirling. No, don't bother! Here she comes."
A tall, dark woman detached herself from a neighboring crowd, and came
up to Deane with outstretched hands. "My dear man!" she exclaimed. "How
dare you look so cool and nonchalant! Do you realize that we are all
starving? We have been waiting here for you for more than half an hour."
"I am sorry," answered Deane. "You see, you people here have taken to
lunching so early nowadays. You make it hard for a man to get through
any work at all in the city."
"Early lunches have come in with the simpler life," Julia Raynham
declared. "One has so many more hours to look forward to dinner, and so
much more appetite when it comes. I suppose we must forgive you," she
went on. "At any rate, you are better than my husband, who won't come
out to lunch at all. He says that all restaurant food is poisonous, and
I can't drag him away from the club. Why a man should put his digestion
before our society, I can't imagine. I hope you will never be so
ungallant, Mr. Deane. Shall we go in, Olive?"
"If you will excuse me for one moment," Deane said, passing on ahead, "I
will just see that the table is all right. I telephoned to Gustave, but
even a _maitre d'hotel_ forgets sometimes."
He looked into the room, and nodded to the presiding genius who came
hurrying up. The table was there, duly reserved, and covered with the
dark red roses which he had ordered. He turned to Mrs. Elstree and the
others who were following her.
"I think we can go in," he said. "I hope you people have not lost all
your appetites waiting for me."
Lady Olive looked at him a little curiously as she took the seat at his
left, hers by unspoken consent as his fiancee. "My dear Stirling," she
whispered, "have you had a very trying morning? You look somehow as
though you had been worried."
He hesitated. "Well," he answered, "scarcely that, perhaps. I had rather
a bad hour or so. Things don't go always our way, you know, in the city,
even when one is most prosperous."
"You are foolish to worry," she said calmly. "Half the people in the
world spoil their lives by giving way to that sort of thing. I should
have thought that your temperament would have saved you from that."
Deane smiled. "Remember," he said, "that I have been in other places
when I might have been with you, and excuse me."
"You are much too gallant," she said, with a little laugh, "to argue
with seriously."
"By the bye," Major Elstree asked, "has anyone seen a special edition? I
wonder if the Rowan case is finished."
Deane set down the wineglass which he had just raised to his lips. "The
verdict was given just as I left the city," he answered. "Rowan was
found guilty!"
CHAPTER VI
AN IMPERIOUS DEMAND
There was a little murmur of interest. On the whole, although the result
of the trial had seemed fairly certain, everyone was surprised.
"Guilty of murder or manslaughter?" Major Elstree asked.
"Of murder," answered Deane. "There was not even a recommendation to
mercy."
Lady Olive looked reproachfully at him. "My dear Stirling, you really
shouldn't have told us at luncheon time. If I hadn't been so very
hungry, I am sure it would have taken my appetite away. He was such a
good-looking fellow, and he has been so brave all through the trial."
"Brave or callous, do you think?" Major Elstree asked.
"Brave, I think," Julia Raynham declared, leaning forward in her place.
"I went to the trial the first day. He followed every question that was
asked, and he was always making suggestions to his solicitor. I think
when one understands like that, when one's intellect is working all the
time, that you cannot call it callousness."
"I agree with you," Lady Olive declared. "I was there myself, and except
that he looked so ill, he seemed quite indifferent, and absolutely free
from nervousness. Yet I am quite sure that he realized his position. My
dear Stirling, how thoughtful of you to remember the _Homard
Americaine_. I adore hot lobster, don't you, Julia?"
"Delicious!" Julia murmured.
"I wonder," Major Elstree said reflectively, "what must be the state of
mind of a man who has gone through a trial lasting four or five days,
and suddenly realizes that it is over and finished, and that he has
lost. This poor fellow, for instance. When he woke up this morning, he
perhaps hoped to be free to-night,--things went altogether his way
yesterday. And instead of being free, he has been taken back to his
cell, and knows--even at this minute he is realizing--that he will never
leave it again until he leaves it to die. Personally," he continued, "I
think that the period of time between the pronouncement of a sentence
and its execution ought to be swept away. I cannot imagine anything more
horrible, especially to a man who has to spend the long nights alone
with that one thought racking his brain!"
Lady Olive laid down her fork. "My dear Harry," she declared, "do be a
little more considerate. How are we to enjoy our luncheon if we think of
that poor man?"
Major Elstree bowed across the table. "I forgot," he said. "Let us enjoy
our luncheon, by all means. At the same time, I am going to drink my
first glass of wine to a reprieve. We won't discuss the question of
whether he deserves it or not. We will talk instead, if you like, of
directoire gowns, and Flying Star's chance for the gold cup. But--I
drink my toast."
"You are very quiet, Stirling," Lady Olive murmured to the man who sat
by her side.
Deane smiled at her. "I am afraid that sometimes when I come away from a
maze of figures, my brain, or at any rate my tongue, is not so nimble as
it should be. I'll keep pace with you all presently."
A frock-coated, white-waistcoated _maitre d'hotel_ came smiling up and
addressed him confidentially. "Mr. Deane," he said, "you are wanted for
a moment upon the telephone."
"You are sure that it is I who am wanted?" Deane asked, a little
doubtfully.
"Quite sure, sir," the man replied. "The inquiry was for Mr. Stirling
Deane."
Deane rose to his feet. "You will excuse me?" he begged, turning to his
guests. "I suppose they have found out at the office that I am here, and
they have probably something to say to me."
Nevertheless, as he left the room and crossed the hall Deane was
conscious of feeling more than a little puzzled. He was quite certain
that he had not told a soul at the office of the Incorporated Gold-Mines
Association, over which he presided, that he was lunching at the
Carlton. He was equally certain that he had not told anyone else. He
took up the receiver of the instrument with some curiosity.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"Who are you?" was the reply.
"I am Stirling Deane," Deane said. "Who are you, and what do you want
with me? Is it the office?"
"No!" was the reply, in a voice wholly unfamiliar to him. "It is not the
office, Mr. Deane. It is someone with news for you."
"News?" Deane repeated. "I should like to know who you are first, and to
hear your news afterwards."
"Who I am is of no consequence," was the reply. "My news is that Basil
Rowan has been found guilty, and has been sentenced to be hanged. The
verdict has just been pronounced."
The receiver nearly fell from Deane's fingers. He restrained himself,
however, with an effort. "Well," he said, "what is that to you or to
me?"
"That is a matter which we will not discuss over the telephone," was the
calm reply. "I rang you up to tell you this because I thought it was
well that you should know quickly. I ask you now what you are going to
do."
Deane's was the face of a strong man--a man who scarcely knew the
meaning of the word "nerves." Yet he felt himself struggling with a
sudden sense of being stifled. Something seemed to be hammering at his
brain. His breath was coming in little sobs. He answered this mysterious
voice almost incoherently.
"What do you mean? How can it concern me? Tell me who you are at once,"
he said.
"It does not matter who I am," was the reply. "You have no time to think
about that. What you want to realize is that Basil Rowan has been found
guilty, and that he will be hanged within a fortnight, unless--"
"Unless what?" Deane gasped.
"Unless someone intervenes," was the quiet answer.
"Who could intervene?" he demanded hoarsely. "How can anyone intervene?"
"You know," was the quiet answer.
Deane staggered out of the telephone box with those last words ringing
in his ears. He felt dazed, scarcely master of himself. The healthy
color seemed to have been drawn from his cheeks, as he turned
mechanically back toward the restaurant. Half-way there, however, he
paused. For the moment, he felt it impossible to face his guests. He
turned into the little smoking-room and sat down. The place was empty.
Even the little bar was deserted. He sat in one of the green leather
chairs, his hands clutching the cushioned arms, his eyes fixed steadily
upon the wall. Slowly it seemed to fall away--to crumble into
nothingness--before his rigid gaze. Again he saw the sombre-looking
courthouse, the judge upon the bench, his sphinx-like face set in an
attitude of cold attention. He saw the barristers, with their wigs and
gowns, the few distinguished strangers upon the bench, the crowd of
sightseers behind the barriers. And in the centre of it all--Basil
Rowan, his pale face and drawn features standing out vividly against the
gloomy background. It was no ordinary trial, this. The subtle, dramatic
excitement, which only a question of life or death seems to generate,
was throbbing through the dreary court. It was only, comparatively
speaking, a few days ago that the man who stood there now waiting to
hear his doom had found his way down into the city, and sat in his
office, and made his passionate appeal. Deane's hands gripped the sides
of the chair, and his lips moved. He told himself, as he had told
himself a hundred times before, that this act was none of his doing,
that not a single word of his had suggested or approved of it. He had
spoken of arguments, of influence. Was it any responsibility of his that
the man who had listened had gone further--had chosen to gamble instead
with life and death? Deane went back through that conversation, word by
word. No, he was guiltless! He had not suggested violence! He even told
himself that he would not have approved of it. And yet the weight upon
his heart was not lightened. The little picture was still there,
reproduced with almost photographic exactness. Was it his fancy, or had
the trembling man's eyes really turned towards him--had his white lips
really framed that passionate, unspoken appeal which seemed to ring in
his ears?
Deane rose to his feet with a little stifled cry. He seemed to
understand now how men who were left alone with their thoughts might
find madness.
CHAPTER VII
LOVE OR INTEREST?
Deane found his little party drinking their coffee in the palm lounge.
Lady Olive greeted him with upraised eyebrows.
"My dear Stirling!" she exclaimed. "Have you been telephoning to the
other end of the world?"
"I am so sorry," he answered, taking the vacant chair by her side. "I
came away from the office feeling that I had forgotten something, and it
took me quite a long time to straighten things out. Tell me, what are
you all going to do this afternoon?"
"We are going down to Ranelagh," said Lady Olive. "There is some tennis,
and Dicky is playing polo in the regimental finals. Don't you think that
you could take an hour or so off, and come down with us? You really look
as though you needed some fresh air."
Deane shook his head. "Nothing in the world," he declared, "is more
impossible. I have an appointment in the city at half-past three, and
another at four. After that I have at least a hundred letters to
dictate."
"I am beginning to discover," Lady Olive remarked, with an air of
resignation, "that there are disadvantages in being engaged to a city
man."
Deane smiled. "Let us hope," said he, "that after you are married you
will still regard the situation in the same light. Your friend Julia,
for instance, declares that she would never have married anyone who was
not kept away from home at regular intervals."
Lady Olive leaned a little towards him. After all, he had been very
nice. The Elstrees had found him delightful, and there was no man in the
lounge half so good-looking. She decided to say something charming.
"Julia," she whispered, "was never in love with her husband, even before
she married him."
"And you?" Deane murmured.
She laughed at him and looked away, but he was suddenly insistent,
taking her hand, and forcing her to turn again towards him.
"Tell me," he said quietly, "do you really care for me, Olive? Oh! I
know you care enough to justify you in marrying me, but I mean something
different. I mean do you really care in the great fashion, you know,
like the people one reads of,--like Iseult, and Amy Robsart, and those
others?"
She looked at him as though he were speaking some foreign language. The
earnestness in his face was unmistakable. She answered him with a
perplexed little frown upon her forehead. "Ah, I wonder!" she murmured.
"What a very strange question to ask me, Stirling, just now! Frankly, I
don't know. I can only tell you that there is no other man. You are
quite alone."
The others were all discussing some subject of kindred interest. Deane
felt curiously prompted to continue his questioning. His engagement had
been such a very matter-of-fact affair. To a certain extent it was
understood that he was marrying for position, and she for wealth. And
yet in all their conversations they had discreetly concealed the fact.
They had told each other that they cared, if not with passion, at least
in the most approved manner. There had been no suggestion in their many
tete-a-tetes that they were about to embark upon a _mariage de
convenance_.
"Tell me," Deane persisted, "if things should go wrong with me, or if
you had met me simply as a struggler, with my feet upon the early rungs
of the ladder,--tell me, could you have cared then, do you think?"
She looked at him curiously. There was something in his face which
compelled the truth. "I do not know," she said. "Let me think."
"Think, by all means," he continued. "Remember that I was introduced to
you, even, as one of the youngest millionaires. Forgive me if I seem
egotistical, but I have a fancy to put things plainly. There is a
glamour about wealth. I came to you with that glamour about my name. I
am rich, of course, and wealth means power. How much of your affection,
Olive, came out to the man, and how much to the millionaire?"
"You want me to give you a perfectly honest answer?" she asked.
"Absolutely," he assured her. "Don't be afraid of hurting my vanity. I
want nothing but the truth."
"At first, then," she told him, "nothing to the man, and everything to
the millionaire. This afternoon," she continued, "I rather fancy that
the man has the larger share. You are quite a fascinating person,
Stirling, when you choose to make yourself agreeable."
"You can't accuse me," he remarked, "of making any special efforts in
that direction to-day."
"No!" she answered. "You were rather quiet, but still you were yourself.
Personally, I am beginning to find something very attractive about a
silent man. You speak quite often enough, and what you say is to the
point. It seems always to be the pronouncement of the man who knows. You
have what Julia calls an air of reserved strength about you, which I
fancy that my sex finds a little attractive. Tell me, why all this
questioning?"
Deane looked away--through the cluster of palms into the little
smoking-room from which he had issued a few minutes before.
"Even the houses," he said, "which according to the injunctions of
Scripture are built upon a rock, are liable to destruction by
earthquakes. So, even, the strongest of us in the city have always the
hundredth chance working in the world against us. The most amazing
collapses have taken place. I was really wondering what would
happen--how greatly it would affect you--if my riches were to vanish
into thin air."
"What an unpractical person you are this afternoon!" she murmured,
looking at him curiously. "Supposing I were to sit here and worry about
the fit of the dress which Madame Oliver is sending me home this
afternoon for the ball to-night. I could make myself miserable in five
minutes without the shadow of a reason."
"Madame Oliver," he declared, "would deserve bankruptcy if she failed to
fit a figure like yours."
Lady Olive laughed. "Really," she said, "you are becoming quite a
courtier."
"Dear people," Julia Raynham murmured, leaning over, "if we may bring
you back to the mundane world, everybody else is dying to start for
Ranelagh."
Lady Olive made a little grimace, and rose to her feet at once.
"Stirling and I have only been boring one another because you all seemed
so occupied," she declared. "Ranelagh, by all means. It is quite time we
made a move."
They made their way toward the Pall Mall entrance of the restaurant.
Lady Olive fell back once more with Deane.
"It's such a nuisance about this wretched dinner to-night," she said. "I
think it was very bad taste indeed of the Duchess to ask us without you.
You won't forget to come in and see me for half-an-hour before we go on
to the ball? I shall be in my room at eleven o'clock punctually, and I
will arrange so that I can take you on to Amberley House."
He bowed. "I shall be with you."
"Where are you dining?" she asked.
"At the club, most likely. I never dine out on Wednesdays, if I can help
it. We are always so busy. I shall have a quiet, comfortable evening."
"Au revoir, then!" she said, stepping into one of the two automobiles
which were waiting.
Deane made his adieux to the rest of the party and watched them drive
off. Then he called a hansom.
"Messrs. Hardaway and Sons, Bedford Row," he told the man. "Drive as
quickly as you can."
CHAPTER VIII
AN AWFUL RESPONSIBILITY
John Hardaway, although he was a solicitor in a very busy practice, did
not keep his friend waiting for a moment. "Come in, Deane, old chap," he
said. "Is this business or friendship?"
"Mostly business," declared Deane.
Hardaway glanced at the clock. "Twelve minutes, precisely," he said.
"Fire away, there's a good fellow. You are not going to give me the
affairs of the Incorporated Gold-Mines Association to look after, I
suppose?"
"Not I," Deane answered. "They need a more subtle brain than yours, I am
afraid. I have come to see you about the other affair."
The lawyer nodded. "You heard the result?" he asked. "We did what we
could."
"Perhaps," Deane answered. "The only thing is that you did not do
enough. I am perfectly convinced, Hardaway, that that man did not go
there with the intention of murdering Sinclair."
"The evidence," Hardaway remarked, "was exceedingly awkward."
"Do you think," Deane asked, "that there is any chance of a reprieve?"
"As things stand at present," said Hardaway, "I am afraid not."
Deane for the first time sat down. With frowning face, he seemed to be
engaged in a deliberate study of the pattern of the carpet. "Hardaway,"
he said finally, "I want to ask you a question in criminal law."
The lawyer laughed dryly. "Not on your own account, I hope?"
"You can call it curiosity, or whatever you like," Deane answered. "The
only point is that I want you to answer me a question, and forget that I
have ever asked it you. Your lawyer is like your confessor, isn't
he--your lawyer and your doctor?"
"He should be," Hardaway answered gravely.
"Then here goes," Deane said. "I put a case to you. I mention no names.
You can imagine, if you like, that I am writing a novel. A man is tried
for murder, and he is sentenced to be hanged. All the time there has
been watching this case, listening to every word of the evidence, a
person who knows quite as much of it as the prisoner himself,--someone
who, if it had been possible, could have gone into the witness box and
could very likely have induced the jury to have reduced the charge from
murder to manslaughter. Never mind the reasons which made that man hold
his tongue. Consider only the fact that he did hold his peace, believing
in his heart that it was not possible, on the evidence which was
submitted, for the man to be sentenced. As it happened, the case for the
prosecution was worked up with almost diabolical cleverness, and the
prisoner was found guilty--guilty of murder. He was sentenced to be
hanged. What can this person do to save his life? The trial is closed.
It is too late for him to offer himself as a witness."
Hardaway nodded. "I understand," he said. "The procedure is very simple.
He should go to the solicitors for the defence, and they will
communicate with the Home Secretary."
"The case cannot be reopened?" Deane asked.
"No!" answered Hardaway, with a shake of the head. "Our criminal law has
many anomalies. The only thing that could happen in the prisoner's favor
would be that if this favorable evidence were convincing enough, the
prisoner might be granted a free pardon, and the facts made known
through the Press. Anything more I can tell you?"
"Nothing," Deane answered, rising. "Many thanks, old fellow. You have
told me just what I want to know."
"Six-and-eightpence, please," Hardaway remarked, holding out his hand.
Deane laughed, and shook his head. "I sha'n't pay," he declared. "You
can run it in with the other account, or I'll stand you a dinner when
and where you please,--a dinner and a box at the Alhambra, if you like."
Hardaway smiled. "We can't run our office on such clients as you," he
remarked, pressing the bell.
"You should never try to fleece your friends," Deane said.
"Referring for one moment to the other affair--" began Hardaway.
"Well?"
"The only real chance of a reprieve that I can see," Hardaway continued,
"is on account of the fellow's health. I believe he is really very much
worse than he appears, and I fancy that if we had a medical examination
it would give us at least a chance. The trouble is that he really seems
quite indifferent. Are you thinking of trying to see him, Deane?"
Deane shook his head. "No!" he said. "I am afraid I must not do that.
There are reasons why I dare not let my name be associated in any way
with this affair. They may come out later on, but just at present I
would rather not tell even you what they are. By the bye, has anyone
representing the dead man turned up at all--I mean has anyone claimed
his effects?"
"No one," the lawyer answered. "From what I can learn they are very
insignificant."
Deane nodded. "Can I rely upon you," he asked, "to let me know at once
if anyone should come forward to claim them?"
"By all means," Hardaway answered.
Deane went out into the street, and stood there for a few moments a
little aimlessly. Then he called a cab and was driven to his offices, a
great block of buildings like a bank, situated in a small court off
Throgmorton Street. He passed through the outer offices slowly, asking
several questions, and shaking hands with one or two acquaintances. When
at last he reached the inner room, his own sanctum, he turned out his
secretary ruthlessly, and locked the door. He sat in his leather chair
in front of the open table, covered with letters and books of reference.
It was before this table that he had built up the fortunes of the great
corporation at whose head he was. He sat there now, erect in his chair,
with his hands stretched out on the table before him, and his eyes
looking through the frosted panes of glass opposite. Was there any
compromise, he asked himself,--any possible compromise? Again he was
looking into the gloomy court. Again he saw the white face of the man
who so short a time ago had sat in this very room, only a few feet away,
and had begged so hard for his chance! The whole scene came flashing
back to Deane as he sat there. How much of blame, after all, was his? He
had not suggested violence. He refused even to admit that it had entered
into his head. Yet he had known what manner of men these two were! He
had known, and their meeting had been all his making! Never in this
world would he be able to escape from the responsibility of it,--never
in this world would he be able to hear those awful words without a sense
of real and personal guilt,--"And may the Lord have mercy upon your
soul!"
CHAPTER IX
WINIFRED ROWAN
The clerk who brought in the little slip of paper was both timid and
apologetic. He felt himself between two fires. The young lady outside
had been a little more than insistent. The man into whose presence he
had come was one who never forgave a mistake.
"You will pardon me, sir," he said. "I hope that I have not done wrong.
The young lady outside positively declined to go away until she had seen
you. I thought that I had better at least bring you in her name. I
remembered that a few weeks ago you saw a gentleman of the same name,
although it was one of your busiest mornings."
Deane held out his hand, frowning. "A young lady," he remarked shortly.
"Well?"
He took the little slip of paper into his hands, and read--_Winifred
Rowan_. He looked up into the clerk's impassive face, and back again at
the slip of paper. "The young lady is waiting outside?" he asked.
"She is outside, sir," the clerk answered. "I explained to her that you
were not in the habit of seeing any callers except by appointment, and I
begged her to write and fix a time, if she really had business with you.
She declared, however, that the matter was an urgent one. Mr. Sawday and
I both heard what she had to say, sir, and we thought it best that I
should bring you in her name."
Deane nodded slowly. "I daresay you were right, Gray," he said. "Since
the young lady is so persistent, you had better show her in. See that I
am not disturbed again this afternoon, however. I have a good deal to
do."
The clerk departed with a great weight off his mind. It was obvious that
he had done the right thing. He left the door ajar, and Deane sat with
his hands clenching the sides of his luxuriously padded writing chair.
Winifred Rowan! It was a relative, then,--most likely the sister of whom
he had spoken. What was he to say or do? How much was he to admit?
Perhaps she had brought him a message. Perhaps she could tell him the
one thing which he was on fire to know. Winifred Rowan! Half
unconsciously he uttered the name aloud. What sort of a woman would she
be, or girl, or child? He had no knowledge of Rowan save as a fellow
adventurer, a seeker after fortune in a strange land, a brave man,
willing always to take his life into his hands if the goal were worthy.
Perhaps it might be that she had been with him. Perhaps she was bringing
a message.
He heard the murmur of voices outside. The door was pushed open. The
clerk stood on one side.
"This is the young lady, sir," he announced,--"Miss Winifred Rowan."
Deane rose for a moment to his feet. The clerk, with a little
deferential movement, closed the door and departed. They were alone in
the room together. Deane, whose self-control was one of the personal
characteristics which had counted for something in his rapid access to
prosperity, felt a nerveless exclamation break from his lips. The girl
who came so slowly into the room seemed so perfectly to represent what
Rowan himself might have become. She was an idealized likeness of the
man by whose side he had fought and suffered and rejoiced, the man who
only a few weeks ago had stood in her place and made his desperate
appeal,--an idealized likeness, perhaps, in more ways than one. She was
younger, and the stress of life had only lately set its mark upon her.
She was fair, as he was fair, with gray-blue eyes, brown hair, and
quivering lips, a figure slim and yet pliant, a manner, even in silence,
appealing,--enticing. Deane felt himself curiously moved at the sight of
her. Then he remembered suddenly how great was his need of self-control.
She was the sister of this man who lay under sentence of death. Perhaps
she had come to plead for his help. He must be careful. All the time he
must be careful!
"You wish to see me?" he asked, a little brusquely. "I am Stirling
Deane. Will you take a chair, and tell me in as few words as you can
what you want?"
She ignored his gesture of invitation. She came on until she had reached
the table before which he was seated. Then she leaned across, and the
light of her eyes, the very insistence of her presence, seemed like
things from which no escape was possible.
"Mr. Deane," she said, "I am Basil Rowan's sister. I have come from the
Old Bailey prison. I have come," she added, with faltering voice, and a
sudden new terror in her face, "from the condemned cell."
Deane had a reserve stock of courage to draw upon, and he drew upon it
freely. He looked at her with upraised eyebrows. "You have come to me,"
he repeated. "Why?"
"First of all, then," she answered, "I will tell you why."
"I think," he interrupted, "that you had better take a seat."
She seemed, indeed, in need of some support. She sank into the chair
which he had indicated. It was close to his side, and yet placed so that
the light which fell upon her face left him in the shadow.
"You have come from your brother," he said. "Do I understand that he
sent you--that he knew you were coming to me?"
"Yes!" she answered. "He told me to be very careful, to be sure that no
one else knew, and never to mention your name, but I have come at his
bidding."
"Very well," Deane said, "I shall be glad to hear your message."
"He gave me no explanation," she said. "He allowed me to ask for none.
He told me to come to you and say this. There is no one," she asked, in
a lower tone, looking nervously around, "who could possibly overhear
us?"
"Not a soul."
"He told me to say," she continued, leaning forward, and with her eyes
suddenly a little distended, "that he had no difficulty in finding the
man of whom you two had spoken--the man whom you used to call Bully
Sinclair. He spent the evening with him, drank with him, went back to
his hotel by invitation. Then he tried very carefully to open up
negotiations. Sinclair became at once suspicious. He was very violent,
and declined to discuss the matter at all. He swore all the time that he
had been robbed, and that he was going to have his revenge. My brother
tried to reason with him, and in the end they quarrelled. It was
Sinclair who struck Basil. My brother only returned the blow. And then
he told me to say that before he could search him, before he could
search the room, he found that the man was dead."
"Anything else?" Deane asked.
"He told me to say that any papers which the man Sinclair might have had
must be in the room among his effects, which have all been put together,
and are still there, locked up, waiting for someone to come and claim
them. He told me to say that he had done his best, and that whatever the
consequences might be he was ready to face them. If you cared to run
risks, the number of the room at the Universal Hotel is 27. It is locked
and guarded, but there might be ways. That is what he said."
Deane leaned a little forward across the table. "But of himself?" he
demanded. "Did he say nothing of himself?"
She shook her head. "It is wonderful," she said, "but he never thinks of
himself. He is more composed, more cheerful, than when I bade him
good-night at Southampton, the day he left home. He made me promise that
I would tell you these things first, before I uttered a word on my own
account. I have kept my promise. You understand what I have told you?"
"Perfectly," Deane answered.
"Then I am going to speak to you now on my own account," she said,
raising her eyes to his. "Mr. Deane, I do not pretend to be a clever
person, but one thing is perfectly clear to me. Basil entered into this
adventure for your sake. Your name was never mentioned in the trial, and
they all seem to have believed that it was to rob Sinclair, and for
nothing else, that Basil went there that night. Mr. Deane, I don't
believe it. His quarrel with Sinclair, and its awful termination, was an
accident. You must come forward and say that he went there to serve you,
and not for purposes of robbery. It is for you to save his life. You can
do it, and he is my only brother."
Deane's eyebrows came a little closer together. The girl who looked at
him wondered no more at the hopeless way in which her brother had spoken
of this man. His face was as though it were carved out of a stone.
"Miss Rowan," he said, "if there is anything which I can do for your
brother, I will do it, for the sake of the days when we lived together,
and when we were so near the very heart of life and death. But I tell
you frankly that I see very little chance of successful intervention on
my part. It takes a good deal in this country to stay the arm of the
law, and your brother has grievously offended against it."
She struck the table before which he sat, with the palm of her hand. "If
he did," she cried, "it was for your sake! I am sure of it! He went to
do your bidding, and you must save him!"
"May I ask," said Deane, "why you are so sure that he went to do my
bidding?"
"Yes! Ask, if you will, and I will answer you. I know it because this
was the real point of all his message to you. This was what I had to
say. This is really why I have come. The document--the document,
mind,--he said no more, but he told me to make this very clear to
you--the document is in a worn leather case, sewn inside the breast
pocket of the coat Sinclair was wearing when he died."
Deane drew a little breath. "Young lady," he said, "it seems to me that
you have been unnecessarily prolix. Your brother sent you here to tell
me this?"
"Yes!"
"He did not send you here," Deane continued, "to beg for help--to waste
my time in purposeless recriminations?"
"No!" she answered faintly.
"He knew very well," Deane continued, "that no mortal man can help him.
The trial is over and the case is lost. The only thing to work for now
is a reprieve."
"But that is not what I want," she interrupted. "He must be pardoned!"
"That," answered Deane, "is impossible. Neither I nor anyone breathing
can work miracles."
She leaned towards him with accusing eyes. "But it was you," she
declared,--"it was you for whom he undertook this enterprise!"
Deane shrugged his shoulders. "My dear young lady," he said, "you are
mistaken. I cannot explain to you yet the full significance of those
various messages which you have brought me from your brother, but
believe me, what he did, he did knowing well the risks he undertook, and
without any thought or hope of aid from me if he should fail. I will be
quite honest with you, if you like. I will tell you the exact truth.
Your brother and Sinclair were once friends. Sinclair and I were always
enemies. There was a little matter of business open between us, and I
thought that your brother might very well arrange it. I had no idea of
his quarrelling with Sinclair. I did not encourage him to do so in any
way."
"You sent him there," she persisted doggedly.
"I send messengers to every part of the world," Deane answered, "but I
do not incite them to enter into murderous quarrels with the people whom
they go to see. I will do what I can for your brother, but it must be in
my own way."
"You will be able at least to save him from--from--"
Deane held out his hand. "Of course," he answered. "You need not think
about that. His health alone would be sufficient to put that out of the
question. What I can do for him, I will. I promise you that."
The girl rose up, and held out her hands a little piteously. "Remember,"
she begged, "I have no one else to go to, no other hope but in you. If I
lose Basil, I shall be alone in the world!"
The tears were in her eyes. Every line of her face, every feature,
seemed to be pleading with him. Deane led her to the door himself. His
tone was unusually kind.
"I will do my best," he promised once more.
CHAPTER X
AT THE THEATRE
The door had barely closed upon his visitor when Deane was back once
more in the throes of business, answering questions, giving quotations,
receiving offers. The telephone was reconnected, and rang out its
impatient summons every few seconds. He signed half-a-dozen drafts,
deputed an understudy to receive some of his visitors who were weary of
waiting, and dictated several important letters. When once more the
pressure had abated, and the telephone had ceased to ring, he leaned
back in his chair with a little exclamation of relief. The visit of
Rowan's sister, and her passionate appeal, had unnerved him for a
moment. He found himself trying to recall her last words, even at the
moment when he realized that she was still in the room, sitting at a
distant corner.
"Miss Rowan!" he exclaimed. "Why, I thought that you had left!"
"I went as far as the outer office," she said apologetically, "and then
I slipped back again. You were so busy that I did not like to
interrupt."
Deane rose to his feet,--he was a little cramped from long sitting. He
lowered the blind and turned on the electric light, walking around the
room, and casually touching the door to see that it was closely shut.
Then he came back to his place, and leaned over once more toward the
girl. "Why have you come back?" he asked.
"To ask you a question," she answered.
"Well?"
"Basil went on your behalf to see this man, Sinclair," she said. "He had
a commission from you, had he not, and he failed?"
"Yes!" Deane said. "He failed!"
"It was to make an offer for some document, was it not?"
Deane nodded. "Yes!" he said. "It was."
"You are doing your best for Basil," she said, her voice trembling a
little. "You paid for his defence, I know. You have promised that you
will do all that you can, even now. I thought, perhaps, I might be able
to do something in return. Why couldn't I get this paper for you?"
He looked at her steadily for several moments. "You could," he answered,
"if you had the pluck."
"Tell me how?" she asked.
"You are his sister," he said. "Presumably you are interested in his
defence. The details of the struggle between those two are, of course,
important. It makes all the difference between manslaughter and murder
if a weight, for instance, be held in the hand or thrown. You know the
lawyers who defended him?"
"Of course," she answered. "Go on."
"If they apply to the proper authorities," he continued, "they can
obtain an order to re-examine the apartments in the Universal Hotel in
which the struggle took place. No doubt you also could find your way
there. Supposing I tell you the truth. Supposing I admit that your
brother did take upon himself a desperate enterprise, and that that
enterprise was to recover from this man Sinclair, by purchase or guile,
or any means which suggested themselves to him, the pocket-book of which
you have brought me news. Remember I commit myself to nothing. I make no
definite statement. I simply tell you that it may have been so."
"It was," she said firmly. "You and I know that. Well?"
"You are his sister," Deane said, "and you have exceptional facilities.
If you could gain possession of that pocket-book, you would be doing me
a service which I should find it hard indeed to repay."
She rose to her feet. "Very well," she said, "it shall be done. I
promise you that it shall be done."
For the first time, when he saw her standing up, and realized how frail
a creature she really was, a wave of pity swept away his own predominant
sense of self-interest.
"But you are not strong enough for such work as this," he declared.
"Better let things drift. I can take care of myself."
She shook her head. "I have made up my mind," she said. "I am going to
make my effort, whatever happens."
"You will remember," he said, "that my name must never pass your lips.
No, don't look at me like that!" he added quickly. "Don't think of me as
a coward, or an utterly selfish person! I am here for what I represent.
Welfare in this concern or business undertaking--call it what you
like--doesn't mean only ruin or wealth for me. There are hundreds of us,
hundreds who are dependent upon the reins I hold. It isn't for myself so
much that I care. Try and believe that, will you?"
She looked into his eyes. "I will," she murmured. "I will believe
everything, but you must save Basil."
"Whether you bring me the pocket-book or not," he answered, "I shall
assuredly do all that a man can do for him."
* * * * *
For the rest of the day, Stirling Deane was his normal self. He
transacted business with his usual acumen. He received his callers, and
went through the ordinary routine of his position, with no indication of
any mental disturbance. He had, indeed, little time to spare for
thought. At half-past six he was whirled away westward in his electric
brougham, changed his clothes, dined hurriedly in his room, and at a
quarter to nine was in the stalls of the St. James' Theatre, sitting
between Lady Olive and her mother. The mechanical part of the day's
arrangements he had found it easy enough to carry out, but to keep his
thoughts engrossed upon his surroundings was a sheer impossibility. He
was not even conscious when the curtain went down, until he found Lady
Olive's eyes fixed curiously upon him.
"Stirling," she said, "I don't think I like you when you have been at
the office all day. Tell me, what can there be about this money-making
so engrossing that you carry it about with you after you have finished
your work, like a shadow?"
He was at once duly apologetic. "My dear Olive," he said, "if I was
_distrait_ for a moment, please forgive me. Consider. It is not my
occupation alone which is engrossing. Supposing, for instance, that I
were a politician. Don't you think that I should be better employed in
thinking over an impending crisis than in listening to an exceedingly
dull play?"
"Perhaps," she admitted, "but crises do not occur in political affairs
every day. I might even be vain enough to suggest another and a simpler
means of escape from your boredom."
"I am very justly rebuked," he admitted, holding her fingers for a
moment, "only you must remember that it is new for me to have so
delightful a means of escape ready by my side. Give me a little time to
realize my good fortune."
"So long as it doesn't become a habit," she murmured. "I am sure I am
not exacting, but I should hate to feel that you were always so
engrossed in your thoughts that you did not even realize whom you were
sitting next."
He touched her fingers once more, and his pressure was gently returned.
Then, as if conscious that she had been a little more than ordinarily
complacent, she withdrew her hand, and leaning over began to talk with
her mother about some people whom Deane knew nothing of. A man from
behind touched him on the shoulder. He looked up quickly and recognized
Hardaway.
"Come and have a cigarette," the lawyer said. "It is a quarter of an
hour's interval, and I should like to have a word with you."
Deane excused himself to his companions, and joined his friend in the
foyer. "Well?" he asked tersely.
Hardaway toyed with a cigarette case, and glanced quietly around. He was
tall and thin, clean-shaven, with hard, pronounced features and sunken
eyes, gray hair parted in the middle, and a single eyeglass suspended
around his neck by a narrow black ribbon. He looked exactly what he
was--a criminal lawyer.
"I wanted to have a word with you, Deane," he said, "about this Rowan
case."
Deane nodded. "Is there anything fresh?" he asked.
"Nothing particular," the lawyer answered. "Come upstairs for a moment."
They found a corner of the refreshment room where no one else was within
hearing. Deane lit his cigarette with perfectly steady fingers. There
was nothing in his face to indicate the fierce anxiety which was
consuming him.
"With reference to that case," his companion commenced, "the facts were
all so simple that there was no need for the prosecution to consider any
other motive than the obvious one of attempted robbery. Therefore, no
very searching investigation has been made into the dead man's papers.
Yesterday afternoon, it occurred to me to look them through once more,
in case anything had been overlooked. I came across a clumsy sort of
document purporting to be the deeds of a gold-mine. I should not have
taken any particular notice of it but for the title of the mine."
"Well?"
"It was the Little Anna Gold-Mine," Hardaway continued. "These deeds
stated that Sinclair himself was the sole owner."
"A very extraordinary document," Deane remarked. "I suppose you couldn't
manage things so that I could have a look at it?"
"It would be quite impossible," the lawyer answered. "Mine was, of
course, a privileged inspection, and I am going beyond my duty in
mentioning this affair to you. It certainly did seem very singular."
"Especially," Deane remarked, with a faint, hard smile, "since you are
in a position to know that I have paid for the defence of the prisoner."
"It is not my business to connect such facts," the lawyer remarked.
"Someone will appear upon the scene sooner or later, of course," Deane
said, "and claim this man's effects."
"Naturally," Hardaway answered, "although, except for this rather
remarkable document, they do not seem to have been very valuable."
"If you should hear of anyone," said Deane, "I should be glad if you
would let me know without a second's delay."
"I will do so," the lawyer promised.
The bell tinkled. The men at the bar finished their drinks, threw away
their cigarettes, and hurried off. Deane and his companion rose to their
feet.
"Hardaway," Deane said, "some of the papers are talking about a reprieve
for this man Rowan. Will it come to anything, do you think?"
"I do not know," the lawyer answered cautiously.
They moved along the passage leading down to the stalls. Deane held his
companion back until the little throng of hurrying men had passed by.
"Listen, Hardaway," he said, "I speak to you as one speaks to the dead,
because you know the secrets of your profession, and because I trust
you. Is there any way in which a man of great wealth, who had the
command of money say up to fifty thousand pounds,--is there any way in
which such a man could help towards obtaining a reprieve?"
Hardaway hesitated for a moment. "Of course," he admitted, "influence is
always a useful thing. Those who have the ruling of these matters are
sometimes hesitating between two minds. A very straw might turn the
balance."
Deane nodded his head. He looked for a moment behind. His hand rested
upon the curtain which led into the stalls. There was not a soul in
sight. The play had recommenced.
"Hardaway," he said, "I will give fifty thousand pounds, if necessary,
to have that man reprieved. The verdict should have been one of
manslaughter. I am convinced of that. I was in court. I heard the
sentence. I saw Rowan's face. I saw the judge put on the black cap, and
I heard those hateful words. Up to fifty thousand pounds, mind,
Hardaway, and I sha'n't have your bill of costs taxed...."
Lady Olive was almost petulant. "What a time you have been, Stirling!"
she said.
"Do forgive me," he begged. "I met a man outside who kept me gossiping
about trifles. Tell me, do you think that we can persuade your mother to
come out to supper?"
"We've nowhere else to go," Lady Olive answered. "Do see if you can talk
her into it. It would be very pleasant."
"I'll try," he promised.
CHAPTER XI
AN APPEAL
A morning paper, apparently in lack of a new sensation, suddenly took up
the cause of Basil Rowan. An evening paper, conducted under the same
auspices, promptly followed suit. This was a case, they both declared,
of obvious manslaughter. The evidence clearly pointed to a quarrel
between the two men. A prominent criminal lawyer allowed his name to be
associated with what rapidly grew to be an agitation. Petitions began to
appear. The Home Secretary was bombarded with documents. Everywhere
people were saying that the man should never have been put on his trial
for murder. The jury had been confused by their instructions. It was a
case of manslaughter, pure and simple.
Three days after her first visit, Winifred Rowan sat once more in
Deane's office. There were lines underneath her eyes. She seemed to have
become thinner and more fragile. Deane himself, save that he was a
trifle paler, was unchanged,--carefully dressed as usual, and with
unruffled demeanor. He sat in his accustomed place, and guided the
destinies of those great affairs which lay under his control. For the
moment he had relaxed. He was doing his best to console the girl who had
come to him in a sudden whirl of terror.
"My dear Miss Rowan," he said, "I have certain intelligence from my
friends. I have gone to great lengths in this matter, and I can assure
you that there is not the slightest doubt about a reprieve being
forthcoming."
She glanced at the calendar. "But think," she said, "already for three
days he has lain there, sentenced to death. Think of what he must be
suffering. Oh, it is horrible! It isn't only death," she cried. "Think
of the manner of it,--the hideous disgrace, the cruel, cold ugliness of
it! Oh, if it should come--"
He held out his hand. She was on the verge of hysteria. "It shall not
come," he declared firmly. "I have promised you that."
"If they are going to reprieve him," she continued, "why do they let him
suffer these agonies? Why do they not tell him so at once? I saw him
this morning. He says nothing. He is as brave as a man can be, but his
eyes are awful, and when he tries to speak his voice dies away. Oh! Mr.
Deane, do something! Oh! do something!"
She laid her hands suddenly upon his shoulders. He took them gently in
his.
"My dear Miss Rowan, I am doing everything that man can do. Believe me
that I am. I only wish that your brother had done as he threatened, and
walked into the river, before he came to me."
She went away at last. Deane lay back in his chair, feeling absolutely
unfit for work. Twice he laid his hand upon the telephone, and twice he
withdrew it. Then he turned to his secretary, who had just entered the
room.
"Get Mr. Hardaway upon the telephone," he directed. "I want to speak to
him."
In a few moments the bell of the instrument by his side tinkled. He put
the receiver to his ear.
"Is that Hardaway?" he asked.
"Yes!" was the answer.
"This is Stirling Deane. You remember the subject of our conversation
the other night at the theatre? I am referring now to the matter of
documents of which you spoke."
"I remember," Hardaway answered.
"In whose possession are those documents at the present moment?" Deane
asked.
"In whose possession," Hardaway repeated. "Do you mean--"
"I mean have they been sent to Scotland Yard, or are they still in that
locked-up room at the Universal Hotel?"
There was a moment's pause. Then Hardaway answered. "To the best of my
belief," he said, "they are still in the room at the hotel. They may be
removed to Scotland Yard at any time, though."
"No one has yet claimed Sinclair's effects, then?" asked Deane.
"No one," was the answer.
Deane was on the point of ringing off, but Hardaway suddenly put a
question to him. "Shall you be in your office for ten minutes, Mr.
Deane?"
"For longer than that," Deane answered.
"I am coming around," the lawyer said. "I hope you can spare me a
moment."
Deane set down the telephone with a frown. Perhaps his question had been
a clumsy one, or was Hardaway already suspicious? He welcomed the
lawyer, when he arrived, a little coldly.
"Five minutes, please," he said. "I have a large mail to go through, and
an early dinner-party to-night."
The lawyer nodded. "I don't want to detain you, Deane," he said. "Send
your secretary away for a moment, there's a good fellow. What I have to
say can be said in half-a-dozen words if we are alone."
Deane pointed to the door. "One moment, if you please, Ellison," he
said. "Get everything ready for me that you can."
The two men were alone. Hardaway, who had not taken a seat, deliberately
drew off his glove, and tapped the table with his fingertips.
"Deane," he said, "have you any idea of paying a visit to the Universal
Hotel?"
Deane met him on his own ground, coolly, and with perfect
self-possession. "I have not made up my mind," he said. "It might be
worth it."
"It wouldn't," the lawyer said. "There's nothing haphazard about the way
these things are conducted. There's a detective watching Number 27, day
and night."
"It occurred to me," Deane remarked, "that as there is no mystery about
this affair, Scotland Yard would not have thought that necessary."
"It is as I have told you," said Hardaway. "At any time after to-morrow,
the man's clothing and documents, and everything belonging to him, will
be removed, unless they are claimed. Until they are claimed they are
watched. It wouldn't do, Deane, for a man in your position to be seen in
this place, especially when one of those papers bears the name of your
mine, and Sinclair has just been murdered by a man for whose defence you
have paid."
"That's plain speaking," Deane remarked.
"It's what I came to say," Hardaway answered. "Don't do it, Deane. We
are not in Africa, you know. Your methods were splendid there. They
might spell ruin here. Good-night!"
"The reprieve?" Deane asked.
"A certainty," Hardaway answered, looking back from the door. "It may be
a week before it is issued, but it is a certainty all the same."
Deane sat in his chair, looking through the dusty window out into the
court,--a dull vista enough, and uninspiring. Of the lawyer's words he
took little enough notice. The reprieve would come, of that he was
certain, but nevertheless he was beginning to feel the severity of the
strain. He was a man who would have been kind-hearted but for the
continual pressure of business obligations. He was a great schemer, a
man of imagination, and a brilliant financier. There had been little
room in his life for the gentler side of his nature to develop. Yet it
had been a genuine horror which he had felt, which he had carried about
with him since the day he had visited the court and looked into Rowan's
white face, and heard those awful words of condemnation amid a silence
intense, unnatural, hideous. It was a memory from which he could not
easily rid himself, a memory which had penetrated even that splendid
armor of indifference in which the man of toil and thought gradually
encases himself. The girl's white face, too, and her plaintive eyes, had
touched his heart. He felt that this period of suspense was growing
almost unendurable!
His secretary entered the room quietly. "Did you wish me to make any
arrangements, sir," he asked, "for the journey to Scotland?"
Deane looked at him for a moment as a man without understanding. Then he
suddenly remembered that to-morrow was the day on which he was to leave
London to join the Nunneley's house-party.
"I am not sure, Ellison," he said doubtfully. "I will let you know in a
few minutes."
Once more he was alone. More impossible, even, than the grim monotony of
the days in town seemed the thought of that prim country house, with its
well-ordered days, its fashionable, easy-going crowd of people. He
suddenly lost heart as he thought of Lady Olive and the prosecution of
his well-ordered courtship. These things for the moment he felt were
impossible. He wrote out a telegram and sent for a Bradshaw. The next
day he disappeared from London.
CHAPTER XII
RUBY SINCLAIR
Twenty-four hours later, Deane walked upon a wilderness of marshy sands,
glittering here and there with the stain of the sea, blue in places with
the delicate flush of sea lavender. In the background, a village of
red-tiled roofs. Before him, an empty sea. Behind and around, nothing
but this stretch of bare, flat country, empty even of the sea until the
tide should come and thrust its long arms of glittering silver up into
the heart of the land. A few wandering gulls screamed overhead. From
inland, a great silence. Here, too, the sea, flowing in upon the level
sands, was quiet and noiseless. Deane felt every nerve of his body at
rest. He realized to the full the marvelous joy of solitude. All the
strain of those last few days seemed to have fallen away. He looked back
upon that passionate chapter of his life as a stranger might look back
upon recorded happenings. The tragedy of Basil Rowan, condemned to death
amid the awful silence of that spell-bound court, sitting now in his
cell with his head turned toward the door, passing through long hours of
torture waiting for the reprieve which might never come, appealed to him
now only as it might appeal to a million others who read the newspapers.
He was almost able to forget that it was he in a measure who was
responsible for that episode. He was able, even, to forget the tragical
side of Winifred Rowan's visits,--to remember only her gentle, appealing
ways, her passionate pleading, her gratitude, tempered still with
anxiety, which had triumphed at their last interview over the repugnance
which she had at first plainly shown towards him. All these doings and
happenings were of another world. Here, trouble and anxiety were like
the noxious playthings of a race of children. The sea that rippled in so
softly on to the firm sands remained untroubled. The seagulls wheeling
above his head in lazy content filled the air with their soothing cries.
Everywhere the sunshine lay about the sea-stained places. The green
marshes sparkled like emeralds. The wet seaweed, lying about in little
heaps, seemed struggling to express new subtleties of color. Down one of
the reaches came a brown-sailed fishing-boat, steered by a man who lay
at full length upon the deck, his head upon a coil of rope, one hand
only grasping the tiller. A few cows were standing about in the drier
part of the marshes, swinging their tails, and moving slowly from one to
another of the little plots of herbage. The very smoke from those
red-tiled cottages went straight to Heaven, unruffled by even the
faintest of breezes. To Deane it seemed that he had found an idyll of
still life, and with a strong instinct of relief, he felt the desire for
sleep, so long denied him, creeping over his hot eyes. The drowsiness of
the place numbed his senses. The pain ceased. He was content to forget.
He threw himself upon the sands, with his back to a sandy knoll covered
with weedy green grass, and with the murmur of the sea in his ears, he
slept.
* * * * *
Deane was awakened by a light touch upon his arm. He sat up, and was
aware of a girl bending over him.
"I am sorry to disturb you," she said, "but if you sit there for another
five minutes, you will be very wet."
The tide was already within a few feet of them. Deane realized the
position and struggled to his feet. "It was very kind of you to wake
me," he said. "I have come down here for a rest, and I suppose I was
entering into the programme a little too thoroughly. After London, the
sea air is just a little strong."
She looked at him with interest, and he returned the gaze. She was
tall--almost as tall as he was himself--slim, with dark eyes, heavy
eyebrows, and complexion burnt brown by exposure to all sorts of
weathers. She wore plain tweed clothes, in the cut of which his critical
eye quickly detected the village tailor. Yet there was something about
her appearance which seemed to remove her definitely from behind the
pale of rusticity. Her eyes were long, and a little narrow, her eyelids
heavy, her mouth had a discontented turn at the corners, her whole
expression was a trifle sullen. He was not in the least prepared for the
change in her face when her forehead suddenly relaxed, the corners of
her mouth softened, and her lips parted in a dazzling smile.
"You are a Londoner?" she asked simply.
"Very much so, I am afraid."
"Afraid?" she repeated incredulously.
"Why not?" he asked. "I am one of the slaves of the world, a man who
sits in his office and toils, year in and year out. We're caught in the
Golden Web, you see. The time comes," he continued, "when we find our
way into a little corner of the earth like this, and one realizes the
gigantic folly of it."
"Your point of view is interesting but unconvincing," she said.
"Why unconvincing?"
"Have you ever thought of the matter from the other point of view?" she
asked,--"thought about those poor people, for instance, who have to live
in a corner of the world like this, always? All these things, which rest
and soothe you here, are beautiful by sheer force of contrast. For a few
days--a week or so, perhaps--the contemplation of them would be restful.
You would lie about on the sands and in the sunshine and believe that
you had found Paradise. And then I think that you would begin to get
just a little discontented. The sun doesn't always shine here, you know,
and when the sun doesn't shine, all the land is colorless. The sea is
gray and ugly, the marshes are flat and dreary, the wind, even in the
summer time, is cold."
He looked at her with interest. She had turned inland, walking very
slowly, and he somehow or other found himself by her side, her
self-invited companion.
"That is rather a pathetic picture," he said. "Anyhow, the solitude
remains, and when one has lived with the roar in one's brain, year in
and year out, the solitude itself is marvelous."
"And when one has lived," she said, "with the solitude always on one's
nerves, lying about one's senses, as though one were the only live thing
in a dead and forgotten world, don't you think that one may long for the
roar, even as you have come here longing for the solitude?"
"We apparently represent the opposite poles," he remarked lightly. "Tell
me, do you live here? I presume, from the feeling with which you speak,
that you are a native."
"I have lived here for nine years," she answered. "I live in a small
house, which you can see just behind the village there. It is very tiny,
but very pretty to look at. I have lived there with an aunt who was a
farmer's daughter, and is very domestic, and an uncle who was invalided
early in life from the Indian Civil Service, and who has done nothing
but play golf and fish and study his constitution for the last fifteen
years."
"You don't travel much, then?"
"I have not been out of this county," she answered, "since I first set
foot in it, nine years ago. I had almost given up all hope of ever
leaving it, until," she added, with a little sigh of content, "a few
weeks ago."
He nodded sympathetically. "You are going to travel at last, then?" he
asked.
"I hope so," she said. "I have an uncle come home from abroad, who, I
believe, is very rich. He wrote to me the day he landed, saying that he
was going to send for me to pay him a visit. I am expecting to hear from
him now any day."
"He is in London?"
"In London!" with a little sigh. "Fancy," she went on, turning towards
him, "I have never been in London! Just say that to yourself, and
imagine what it means. The biggest town I have ever seen is King's Lynn.
Have you ever been to King's Lynn?"
He shook his head. "I am afraid not."
"Then you can't understand," she said,--"I couldn't make you
understand--what it means to me to think that very soon I shall have a
glimpse, at any rate, into the world. If I had met you three weeks ago,
probably I shouldn't have dreamed of waking you up. I should have let
you get wet and then laughed at you. If you had ventured to speak to me,
I should probably have stuck my nose in the air and walked away. You see
how mellowing an influence even the possibility of escape is."
"What a disagreeable young person you must have been!" he remarked.
She nodded. They were walking side by side now on the top of a tall
dyke. On their left-hand side was the creek which flowed into the
village from the sea.
"That is precisely my reputation," she declared. "My aunt detests me. My
uncle is always irritable because I can beat him at golf. He is out
playing over there now," she remarked, with a wave of her hand toward
the furthest stretch of the marshes. "Do you play golf?"
Deane admitted that he did not.
"You came here, then, only to rest?" she said.
"Only to rest," he answered.
"Where are you staying?"
He turned around and pointed to the square stone tower which stood on
the edge of the sea. "I am stopping there," he answered,--"the old
Coastguard's Tower they call it, I believe. It is the queerest
habitation I have ever been in."
"You wonderful person!" she declared. "How ever did you get old Pegg and
his wife to clear out?"
"I paid them well," he answered. "At least I didn't do it myself. My
servant comes from these parts, and he told me about the place and
arranged everything. I am hoping to be able to buy it."
There was, as he had remarked from the first, not the slightest
reticence about her. She had almost the frankness of a child.
"You have a servant?" she asked, looking at him with renewed interest.
"Do you mean that he is there with you now?"
Deane nodded. "I could scarcely be expected to cook for myself, could
I?" he inquired. "He completes my establishment."
"I suppose," she said, "you are a rich man."
Deane shrugged his shoulders. "Wealth," he remarked, "is a relative
thing."
"Oh! I don't understand those fine sayings!" she declared, a little
impetuously. "I only know that to have money is grand, is wonderful. I
would give anything in the world to be rich, to have money to spend as I
wanted to spend it, and clothes, and jewels, and all the delightful
little things of life, to go where I wanted, live as I wished, buy the
things I wanted to buy. There's something hideous about being a pauper."
He looked at her curiously. She was certainly, for all her frankness, a
new type. Her frankness was more the frankness of a child than the
outspokenness of _gaucherie_.
"Some day," he said, "you may probably have your wish. There is your
uncle, for instance."
She nodded. "It is my one hope," she said, "my one hope. I go to meet
the postman every morning. It is three weeks since he wrote and said
that he was going to send for me. You don't think that he would change
his mind?" she asked, turning suddenly towards him with almost tragic
intensity.
"Very unlikely, I should say," he answered. "Has he any other
relatives?"
"None," she answered. "Even my uncle and aunt with whom I live here are
not relatives of his. You see, he was my father's brother. Mr. Sarsby
was my mother's brother."
"It is Mr. and Mrs. Sarsby with whom you live?" he remarked.
She nodded. "Yes! And my name is Sinclair," she said,--"Ruby Sinclair."
He stopped short for a minute in the middle of the dyke path. She was
walking a little ahead, and missing him in a few moments, turned around.
He was standing like a man turned to stone.
"What is the matter?" she asked. "Are you tired, or aren't you well?"
He recovered himself with a little effort. "It is all right," he said.
"You know I told you I'd come down here to recoup a little. I get
nervous attacks. I was suddenly giddy then."
She came back. Her face was once more softened in its expression of
kindly concern. "Would you like to take my arm?" she asked, a little
timidly. "We are close to the cottage now. Perhaps you would like to
come in and sit down. My aunt would be glad to see you."
"No!" he said. "Let us rest here for a moment."
They sat down on the edge of the high, grassy bank. He tortured himself,
gazing into her face, trying to find some likeness between her and the
murdered man. There was none, he told himself,--none. The name was a
common one--one of the commonest. It was ridiculous to connect this girl
in any way with the tragedy under whose shadow he had passed. Yet he
felt his fingers nervously clutching the bank upon which they were
sitting. The seagulls still wheeled their way across his head. The tide
was flowing softly up into the creek below them. A fishing-boat came
gliding by. A lark rose almost from their feet, and was singing just
above their heads. Everywhere around was peace and quiet. It was the
same land in which he had found content only a few hours ago, yet it
seemed to him that already the shadow had come.
It was she who rose first. She shook out her skirts a little
reluctantly, and turned toward the village, saying: "I am sorry, but I
must go. Meals at our house are the one thing more certain than the
rising of the sun. We lunch at one, and it is ten minutes to. Do you
feel well enough to get back, or will you come on with me?"
"I will go back," he said. "I wonder," he continued, "what are you going
to do this afternoon?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "There is nothing," she answered. "Come out
here, I suppose, and pray that I may have a letter to-morrow morning."
"Be unconventional," he begged. "Take pity upon an invalid, and come and
have tea with me."
"I'd love to," she answered, "if I can get away. About half-past four?"
"Yes," said he. "I shall be waiting for you."
"Don't come to meet me," she begged,--"not that it matters, of course,
only if uncle knew that you were staying there, and that you came from
London, and that I had talked to you, he would want to come and call. He
is one of those fussy people who like to hear themselves talk, and to
make acquaintances. It's all very well for you to shiver," she added,
with a little smile, "but I have to live with him."
With a laugh he said: "I'll hide, until I see you actually before the
door. You will come, though?"
"I'll come," she promised, turning away with a little wave of the hand.
CHAPTER XIII
AN INFORMAL TEA-PARTY
After all, the element of unconventionality was absent from Deane's
tea-party. About four o'clock, looking landwards from a little sandy
knoll just in front of his strange abode, he saw two figures coming
along the dyke path. A few minutes later, Ruby Sinclair and her
companion came across the last little strip of shingle, and approached
the spot where Deane was waiting for them.
"My uncle would like to make your acquaintance, Mr. Deane," she said.
Deane held out his hand and welcomed his visitor--a small, fussy-looking
little man with a gray moustache, and a somewhat awkward air of being at
his ease. He wore a tweed knickerbocker suit,--very old-fashioned, and
of local make,--a flannel collar, and an ill-chosen tie. He shook hands
with his host in a perfunctory sort of manner.
"Thought I must just look you up," he explained, "living out here. Such
a lonely spot, too! You are going to play golf, of course?"
Deane shook his head. "I never play," he answered. "I have come here to
rest."
To rest! The word seemed a strange one to the fussy little man, who was
already taking stock of his surroundings. Photographs in silver frames,
a pile of books--all new, a gun and fishing-rod, and other such
belongings--all, naturally, the best of their sort!
"Well, but you must do something!" Mr. Sarsby remarked. "You cannot sit
here all day and look at the sea,--like the fishermen," he continued,
with a little laugh. "A very lazy lot--our fishermen," he went on.
"Never go out if there's a ripple on the sea."
Deane nodded. "The tides," he remarked, "are rather treacherous, I
should think."
The servant brought in tea and a great dish of strawberries, at which
Mr. Sarsby gazed in amazement.
"Strawberries!" he exclaimed. "Why, we don't begin to think about them
for another six weeks!"
"Is that so?" answered Deane, carelessly. "I never know anything about
seasons, and my man is doing the catering. Miss Sinclair, you must make
the tea for us. I am afraid our methods are a little crude, but you see
we are trying to get along without any women-servants."
Mr. Sarsby was a little abashed. He had seldom sat down to a table
covered by a cloth of such fine linen, and he had certainly never been
waited upon, of late years, by a man-servant. His little eyes roved
inquisitively around. "You come from London, sir, my niece tells me," he
remarked.
"From London," Deane replied.
"A wonderful place!" Mr. Sarsby said, with a sigh. "Since I retired,
unfortunately, I have had to drop out of life altogether."
"Your health?" Deane suggested politely.
"My health, and my ridiculously small pension," Mr. Sarsby answered. "I
can't make out what the country is coming to. Years ago, pensions were
altogether on a different scale. To-day, it seems to me that every
government is always trying to shirk its obligations to those who go out
and help to build up the empire."
This was Mr. Sarsby's favorite little speech, which he made regularly
several times a week in the village, and once a year at a club dinner.
Deane received it in sympathetic silence.
"Tell me how you spend your time, Miss Sinclair?" he asked. "You play
golf, I think you told me."
"Oh! I do all the obvious things one has to do, living in such a place,"
she said. "I swim and I fish, I play golf and tennis when I can get any,
and I sail a boat when I can borrow one. Those things are all sport to
you, I suppose. When they become not a part of your life, but the whole
of it, they are a dreary sort of pursuits."
"My niece is seldom satisfied," Mr. Sarsby said sharply.
"Why should I be?" she asked. "You, at least, have had your day. You
have seen something of life, in however small a circle. I haven't! I
dare say, after twenty years away, I might be content with these things.
Life for you is simply a satisfactory thing or not according to whether
you have beaten Colonel Forsitt or whether he has beaten you, whether
you are heeling your mashie shots or laying them dead, holing your putts
or leaving them short. You see, I haven't quite come to the stage when I
find these things sufficient."
"At any rate," Mr. Sarsby remarked, with what he imagined was a
dignified air, "there is no need to take a stranger into your
confidence. Mr. Deane is scarcely interested."
"On the contrary," Deane answered, with a little bow. "But I thought you
told me, Miss Sinclair, that you were probably leaving us before long."
"Oh, I hope so!" she replied. "My uncle was not a man to break his
promise, and he did promise. I am expecting to hear now every day."
After tea, they wandered out on to the little stretch of sandy shingle
which alone separated the cottage from the sea. The girl had walked on a
little ahead, and Deane laid his hand for a moment upon her uncle's
shoulder.
"Mr. Sarsby," he said, "did I understand that the name of your niece's
uncle was Sinclair--the same as her own?"
Mr. Sarsby nodded. "Yes, sir!" he said,--"Richard Sinclair. He was her
father's brother, you see,--a queer, wandering sort of fish. However, he
certainly did write the girl, a few weeks ago, saying that he was back
in England, and hoped to realize a large sum of money on some of his
investments, and promised to send for her to come up to town. Since
then, we have heard nothing from him."
"Do you read the papers, Mr. Sarsby?" Deane asked.
"I read the _Times_ for an hour every afternoon between five and six,"
Mr. Sarsby admitted. "I have a special arrangement with Mr. Foulds--the
vicar--which enables me to do this,--a special arrangement!" he
concluded, with a little gurgle of satisfaction. "Our vicar, by the bye,
Mr. Deane, is a highly intelligent man. He will doubtless be coming
across to see you."
"I am here for so short a time," Deane said. "It is very kind of people,
but really it is scarcely worth their while to trouble to come to see
me. I am going on to Scotland in a few days. It is only that I was a
little run down, and scarcely felt up to a large house-party, that I
came here first."
"You are one of those fortunate people, I see," Mr. Sarsby remarked, a
little enviously, "who mix in the world."
Deane shrugged his shoulders. "More or less, I suppose," he admitted.
"But I was asking you whether you read the papers. I did so for an
object. I wonder whether you have noticed the details of a very sordid
murder that was committed in a London hotel a short time ago?"
"I never read of such things, sir!" Mr. Sarsby declared. "They do not
interest me. I read the political news and the foreign intelligence.
Anything that pertains to India, also, naturally claims my attention. I
have always contended," he continued, "that a golf column in the
_Times_, say twice a week, would be much appreciated. We who study the
game from the scientific point of view would like to see the attitude
the _Times_ would take on certain matters. For instance, I myself--"
"Pardon my interrupting you, Mr. Sarsby," Deane said, with his eyes upon
the returning figure of the girl, "but I was speaking about this murder.
Curiously enough, the unfortunate man was named Sinclair, and he had
just returned from abroad."
Mr. Sarsby slowly opened his mouth. Looking up at his companion blankly,
"You don't for a moment imagine," he began, "that there could be any
connection between this person and Ruby's uncle?"
"I haven't any idea," Deane answered, "but when she mentioned his name,
and told me that he had just come back from Africa, and that she had
been waiting for a letter which did not come, it certainly occurred to
me to be rather in the nature of a coincidence!"
"Have you a paper?" Mr. Sarsby asked hurriedly.
Deane shook his head. "No!" he said. "But there must be a village
library, or some place where the London papers are preserved."
"There is," Mr. Sarsby declared. "I will hurry back. I will go and read
about it at once. Does it say whether the unfortunate man," he
continued, "was possessed of any means?"
"I do not remember," Deane said. "The object of the murder was supposed
to be robbery, but the hotel he was staying at scarcely seemed to be one
likely to attract a man of wealth."
"I shall hurry back at once," Mr. Sarsby declared. "If there is anything
in this, I must come and ask your advice."
"If the thing seems in any way possible," Deane remarked, "you will have
to run up to town and make inquiries."
Mr. Sarsby opened his mouth. "My dear sir!" he exclaimed. "Go to London?
But there, there!" he added. "I forgot! If there is anything in it, the
estate would, of course, pay my railway fare. Such a busy week, too, as
I have next week," he added, taking out his memorandum book and glancing
at it for a moment. "I have seven golf matches,--three foursomes and
four singles. I scarcely see how I could get away. Ruby," he called,
"come along, my dear. We must be getting back."
The girl stifled a yawn. She was beginning to be a bit curious as to why
their host had devoted all his attention to her uncle. "Very well," she
answered laconically. "I am quite ready. Good-bye, Mr. Deane!"
"If I may," he said, "I will walk a little way with you."
They crossed the strip of shingly beach together. Afterwards, by
necessity, the party became detached. Mr. Sarsby walked on ahead. Deane
and the girl followed him, a few yards behind.
"You seem to have found plenty to say to my uncle," she remarked
curiously.
"If you will spoil an interesting tea-party," he murmured, "by bringing
in an elderly male relative,--"
"It wasn't my fault," she interrupted. "He would come--insisted upon
it--as soon as he knew that I had spoken to you. Your man has been
making purchases and sending telegrams in the village, which has made
every one curious. People who live in small places are always such
snobs."
He laughed. "Well, I had to talk to your uncle, anyhow," he said.
She nodded. "You know now what I have to put up with," she said. "He is
a dull, ignorant, pompous little bore. You have probably found that out
for yourself by now."
"You dismiss your relatives a little summarily," he remarked.
"I try to speak the truth," she answered. "I believe in being just to
people. If I knew of any good quality that he possessed, I would tell it
to you,--but I don't!"
She believed in being just! He looked at her as she walked by his side,
stepping along with the delightful freedom of healthy youth, her limbs
clearly defined beneath her thin skirt,--for they were facing a land
breeze which played havoc, also, with her hair. She walked well, her
head a little thrown back. Deane recognized the graceful lines of her
neck and throat, the carriage of her chin. There was something
particularly rhythmic about her movements. She was a believer in
justice! Well, she looked like that. The mouth, in repose, was a little
hard,--the jaw determined. He found himself wondering, with a nervous
sort of morbid curiosity, exactly what she would say and do if she had
known with whom she was walking, and if Dick Sinclair had indeed been
her uncle! Supposing she knew the whole truth,--knew of that heated
interview, knew of Rowan's enterprise, knew of the paper which was still
sewn into the dead man's coat! She would scarcely be an easy person to
deal with, he thought.
Her uncle had turned round. They had reached the end of the dyke. A
little grass-grown footpath led them now to the side of the harbor,
beyond which lay the village.
"Mr. Deane," he said,--"Mr. Deane, I should like to show you the village
schoolroom."
Deane nodded. "I should be very glad," he said.
Mr. Sarsby turned to his niece. "Ruby," he said, "go home and tell your
aunt where we are. I shall be home in half-an-hour,--perhaps
five-and-twenty minutes. If there is any message for me from the golf
club, the boy can wait till I return. This way, Mr. Deane,--this way."
The girl turned away with a little grimace, and waved her hand to Deane
as she disappeared. The two men climbed the village street side by side.
CHAPTER XIV
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
Mr. Sarsby, like most men of his stamp, when brought in touch with
larger things than his world knew of, was nervous and helpless. He
seemed to throw the whole weight of further action upon this stranger at
whose instigation he had commenced the search.
The reading-room was empty except for these two men. Deane was sitting
in the little bow window, looking down with apparent interest into the
narrow, tortuous street. Sarsby, with a pile of torn and crumpled
newspapers in front of him, was still standing, leaning over the long
table in the centre of the room. His search was finished. He had no
doubt whatever in his mind. The murdered man was indeed Ruby's uncle!
"Mr. Deane!" he exclaimed hoarsely.
Deane turned his head. "Well?"
"There's no doubt at all about it," declared Mr. Sarsby, striking the
little pile of papers with the back of his hand. "It's the man--it's
Ruby's uncle! The date of his arrival corresponds, and the hotel is the
one from which he wrote to Ruby."
Deane nodded. "I fancied that it must be the same," he said.
"It is the same," Mr. Sarsby declared. "What are we to do? Something
must be done at once!"
"Exactly," Deane remarked. "Your niece, of course, must claim her
inheritance--that is, if the man was really worth anything."
"Of course!--Of course!" Mr. Sarsby said. "Dear me, what an unfortunate
business this all is! I suppose I must go to London with her, and London
always upsets me horribly."
"I am afraid that you must make up your mind to that," Deane remarked.
"As I said before, if there is anything I can do to help you, I shall be
delighted."
"But you won't be there," Mr. Sarsby said. "You are going from here to
Scotland."
Deane hesitated. "I might," he said,--"in fact I think that I certainly
should,--go to Scotland by way of London."
"But we must leave at once!" Mr. Sarsby declared. "At least I suppose
so."
Deane rose to his feet. He had not much sympathy for the frightened
little man, whose eyes were continually seeking his as though for help
and advice.
"Well," he said, "I scarcely see how you can keep away, under the
circumstances. You must talk it over with your niece, and let me know
what you decide."
They left the place together. As they stepped out on to the pavement,
Mr. Sarsby coughed apologetically. "I suppose," said he, "you would
consider it necessary for me to tell my niece about this? It will be a
shock to her, of course. She had hoped so much from the coming of this
uncle, and I am afraid that she is not particularly contented here."
"I scarcely see," Deane answered, "how you can keep it from her."
"There is no mention of any property," Mr. Sarsby remarked,--"none at
all. In fact, the papers say that his effects were so small that it
seemed difficult to believe that robbery was the motive of the crime.
Still, I suppose she must be told."
Deane walked down the narrow street, his hands behind his back, his eyes
fixed upon the arm of the river below, dotted now with brown-sailed
fishing-boats. Here, after all, was a simple way out of the difficulty!
The murdered man had no other relatives. In all probability, no one
would ever tell the girl. No one would ever claim the possessions of the
dead man, whatsoever they might be. Then common sense reasserted itself
in his brain, and he stifled the instinct which he had so nearly yielded
to.
"She must be told, Mr. Sarsby," he said. "If you would rather not tell
her yourself, I will do so."
Mr. Sarsby shook his head. "It isn't that," he said. "I don't mind
telling her. But it's the journey to London, and the excitement, and all
that. I hate worry of any sort. It's bad for my health, anyhow."
They stood upon the little quay, and Deane hesitated. "If there is
anything further which I can do," he said, "come out and look me up. In
any case, let me see you before you start for London."
Mr. Sarsby wrung his hand. "It is very good of you," he declared. "I
shall certainly come out before we start,--most certainly! I can't
imagine what Ruby will say. Poor girl! Poor girl!"
Deane retraced his steps along the high dyke bank to the marshes which
surrounded his tower. Once or twice he looked behind, looked toward the
low white front of the cottage which the girl had pointed out as her
abode. Once he fancied that he saw something moving in the garden, and
he stood on the top of the dyke, gazing with a curious interest at the
slowly moving speck passing in and out amongst the trees. Then it
vanished. He turned and made his way homeward....
Towards sunset, the heat of the day seemed suddenly to increase. A
curiously hot wind sprang up from the land, black clouds gathered in the
sky, and unusual darkness hung over the land. The air seemed charged
with electricity. Every moment it seemed as though the clouds must break
and the storm come. The tide came rolling in, no longer with a faint,
insistent ripple, but with great powerful waves, throwing their spray
far and wide. Deane left his dinner more than once to stand outside on
the little knoll and watch. Every moment he expected to see the banks of
black clouds riven with lightning, to hear the far-off muttering across
the sea grow nearer and nearer. The whole world seemed to be in a state
of suspended animation. The seagulls had ceased their screaming, and had
taken shelter in some hidden haunt. A little fleet of fishing-boats had
furled their sails. Not a soul was to be seen upon the marshes.
Deane finished his dinner and sat by the wide-open window, leaning upon
his folded arms, looking out at the foam-flecked sea,--foam which seemed
to glitter with a clear, white phosphorescence in the failing light.
There were books by his side, but he felt no inclination to
read;--cigarettes and cigars at his elbow, but he lacked the enterprise
to smoke. There was something almost theatrical, something breathless,
in this pause before the storm! He himself was in an emotional frame of
mind. Another page of this tragic chapter had opened before him. The
coming of this girl was in itself a catastrophe. She would take
possession of the papers belonging to the murdered man,--would show
them, probably, to a lawyer. After that, only the worst could happen!
Then, as he sat there, the profound silence was suddenly broken. He
heard the crunch of the gravel beneath flying footsteps, the rustle of a
skirt, a little half-subdued cry! He looked up in amazement. It was
Winifred Rowan who was coming towards him, her hair disordered, her eyes
lit with fear,--a strange, half-terrified figure, flying from the storm!
"Miss Rowan!" he exclaimed breathlessly.
Even as he spoke, the clouds were parted at last with a dazzling blaze
of forked lightning. The girl gave a little cry and held out her hands.
He leaned over, and, as the thunder shook the building, took her into
his arms, lifting her over the narrow window-sill into the room.
CHAPTER XV
THE EFFECT OF A STORM
Deane was never quite sure how it had happened. The sudden crash of the
storm, the vivid play of the lightning in the darkened room, the curious
exultation which any outburst of nature seems to kindle in the forgotten
places, had somehow generated a curious excitement--something
electrical, incomprehensible, yet felt by both of them. His hands were
still about her for a moment after she was in the room. It was perhaps a
harmless instinct enough which caused her to draw a little nearer still
to him with fear, as the thunder crashed overhead and the ground beneath
their feet rocked. Then there happened what he was never able to
explain. She was in his arms, her panting breath fell hot upon his
cheek, his lips were pressed to hers, before he even realized what was
happening. Her head fell a little back, her lips seemed to meet his
freely, unresistingly. It was one of those moments of madness which seem
to be born and die away, without reason, almost without volition. Deane
himself was no Lothario. In his office he had talked kindly with this
girl, and it had never occurred to him for a single second even to hold
her hand in his. Her comings and goings, except for their association,
had left him unmoved. Afterwards, when he tried to think of it, his
senses were simply benumbed. Yet the fact remained that she had come
into his arms as though she had heard the call of his heart for her,
that their lips had met with all the effortless certainty of fate.
The thunder ceased. She disengaged herself from his arms with a little
cry. Her bosom was still heaving, her cheeks were white almost to
ghastliness, with one little patch of brilliant color where his lips had
rested for a moment. She tried to speak, but the words seemed stifled in
her throat. He led her to a chair, arranged cushions for her back, and
stood over her.
"Is there news?" he asked.
"None!" she faltered.
He shook his head. He was completely bewildered. "How did you find me
out?" he asked. "What brings you here at this hour?"
"It is because there is no news," she cried, speaking with difficulty.
"I cannot rest or sleep. Every moment that passes tears at my
heartstrings. Life has become nothing but a living nightmare. Don't be
angry with me that I came. I was obliged to do something or I should
have gone mad."
"I am not angry," he said. "I am only amazed, I cannot understand--"
"Oh, I found out where you were!" she said. "I did everything that was
mean. I bribed someone to tell me. This morning I saw Basil. I think I
came to him at a weak moment. The horror was in his eyes. I shrieked
when I saw him. Even now when I think I must shriek. Mr. Deane, I have
come to pray, to beg you to go back. You are very rich. There must be
ways of saving him. You have influence with people. Go back and use it.
What can you do here in the wilderness? It seems almost as though you
had left him to die."
He stooped down and took her hands once more in his. "My dear little
friend," he said, "remember what I told you in my office. Believe me, I
should not have left London if the slightest doubt had remained as to
your brother's safety. Never mind how I managed it. You had better not
ask; you had better not know. But your brother will be reprieved. It is
a certain thing."
She drew a long breath. Once more her face was at any rate human. The
lightning filled the room with a sudden glare. She caught at him with a
scream. "Oh! I am afraid, I am afraid!" she moaned.
He passed his arm around her reassuringly. "You are overwrought," he
said. "You are almost at the end of your strength."
He poured out some brandy and water, and made her drink it. Her hand
shook so that he had to guide the glass to her lips.
"Listen," he said, "you must keep calm or you will be ill, and you will
not be able to help your brother. Tell me, have you eaten anything
to-day?"
"I don't remember," she gasped.
Deane rang the bell. "Something to eat," he ordered, "for one, as
quickly as you can. And some wine--anything will do."
It was to the man's credit that he received his orders without comment
or surprise. Once more they two were alone.
"If you have any faith in me," Deane said, "or any belief, remember what
I have told you. Your brother is safe. To-morrow or the next day the
reprieve will be signed."
"Say it again!" she gasped, clinging to his hand.
"To-morrow or the next day," he repeated firmly, "the reprieve will be
signed. There can be no mistake. There will be none."
"Ah!" she murmured, half closing her eyes. "It was to hear you talk like
this that I came. I could not have borne it alone for another second.
Something in my head seemed to be giving way."
"The storm, too, is terrifying," he said. "You were fortunate not to be
ten minutes later. Look!"
He led her to the window. Across the marsh was a darkness that was less
of the atmosphere than of the falling torrents of rain,--rain that fell
in sheets, flung up again from the hard paths of the marshes in a white,
fringe-like foam. Seaward, the waves had become breakers. The one white
line had become a dozen.
"You would have been drowned," he said, leading her back to her chair.
"It is good of you," she said, "not to be angry. I ought not to have
come. I know that. Only I was afraid. In London I should have gone mad."
The servant entered with a tray. Deane stood over her while she ate,
walking up and down the room, talking in a disconnected manner of many
things. Outside, the storm was passing away. Through the wide-open
windows fresh salt air came stealing into the room. Deane stood looking
out for a few minutes, and then turned towards his visitor with an air
of perplexity. She met his gaze, and her eyes suddenly filled with
tears.
"Oh! I know I have been foolish," she said. "I am here and you don't
know what to do with me. Isn't that what you were thinking? I have been
very foolish," she added, with a sudden flood of color streaming into
her cheeks. "But remember, when I came I was mad. You will remember
that?"
"Yes!" he answered reassuringly. "I will remember that."
There was an awkward silence. Deane felt that it would have been torture
to her if he had alluded to that moment of madness, and yet it was hard
altogether to avoid it.
"I am afraid," he said, "that you will have to put up with bachelor
quarters to-night. You can have my room here. I have another which will
do, but you would find it a little rough."
She looked at him timidly. "Couldn't I--get back to the village?"
He led her outside and pointed. The storm, coming with the full tide,
had wrought a strange change in the face of the land. Up to the very top
of the dykes was a turbulent waste of waters. The tower had been left as
though upon an island. Nowhere in sight was any land to be seen.
"You see," Deane said to the girl, "it would not be safe to try and get
to the village. The water is up to within a few inches of the dyke, and
in the half darkness one might easily make a false step. From here one
cannot quite see, but I should imagine that the flood is over the
village street."
She turned back toward the little gray stone building. "If you will let
me sleep in your sitting-room, then," she said timidly. "I will not turn
you out of your room."
He laughed. "My dear young lady," he said, "if anyone in the world ever
needed sleep to-night, it is you. I am going to send you up to lie down
at once. You must promise me, promise faithfully, that you will remember
what I have said, that you will say this to yourself: 'The reprieve will
come!' It is the truth, mind. Say that to yourself and sleep."
Then he touched the bell and spoke to his servant. "Grant, please make
my room as habitable as possible for this young lady. We are on an
island, and no one will be able to leave to-night. Put out anything of
mine you think may be useful to her."
She turned towards him impulsively. "You are very good to me," she said.
"My dear Miss Rowan, I only wish that it were in my power--"
Then he stopped short. After all, it was not wise to tell her too much.
He raised her fingers to his lips, and avoided, with a sudden twinge of
self-reproach, the soft invitation of her timidly raised eyes.
"You must sleep well," he said, as he pointed the way up the stairs.
"Remember, you can take what I have told you as a promise."
CHAPTER XVI
A REPRIEVE
Morning dawned upon a land still as though from exhaustion. The long
waves, sole remnant of the storm, came gliding in with a slow, lazy
motion, and broke noiselessly upon the firm sands. The sky was blue. Of
wind there was none at all. Inland, the flood-tide was still high. Only
the tops of the dykes were visible. Everywhere the sea had found its way
into unexpected places. Little patches of the marsh from which it had
just receded shone with a new glory--a green glitter like the sparkle of
emeralds. Deane, who was out early, for his bed had been no more than a
sofa, gave a little start of surprise as he opened the door and found
Winifred Rowan standing on a little knoll by the side of the flagstaff,
looking seaward.
She turned towards him at once with the sound of the opening door. He
realized then, more completely than in the dusk of the evening, how
great the strain of these last few days had been,--the strain which had
driven her into this strange journey. The black rings under her eyes
seemed as though traced with a pencil, her cheeks were thinner, there
was something pathetic about the quick, startled look which flashed into
her eyes at the sound of Deane's approaching footsteps.
"I am afraid," he said gravely, "that you have not slept."
"As much as usual," she answered. "Tell me, what time do your letters
come?"
He looked inland. "Generally about eight. They may be a little later
to-day."
She nodded. "I must go back," she said vacantly. "When is there a
train?"
It was impossible to ask her to stop, and yet he felt all the pathos of
sending her back to face alone the shadow of her terrible anxiety.
"There is no hurry," he said. "We will look out the trains after
breakfast."
"Are you--going to stay here?" she asked anxiously.
"If I thought," he answered, "that there was the slightest thing I could
do in London which I have not already done, I would go back by the first
train this morning, but, indeed, you must remember what I told you last
night. The matter is practically settled. In a few days he will know."
"It is those few days," she said softly, "which are so terrible."
It was hard to try and make use of any conventional phrase of
reassurance. Deane, remembering how intense, how real and startling a
thing this tragedy really was, found it hard, impossible, indeed.
"Tell me," he asked, "do you live absolutely alone?"
"Yes!" she told him. "There was a cousin who was with me for some time,
but she got a situation the other side of London, and had to move. I was
in a boarding-house," she continued, after a moment's hesitation,
"until--this happened. Then all the people--well, they meant to be
kind," she broke off, "but the woman who kept it thought I had better
leave, and I suppose she was right."
"We will go in to breakfast," he said, a little abruptly.
Every moment he seemed to realize more completely the pathos of her
position. They turned towards the house. Suddenly her fingers fell upon
his arm. "Who is that?" she asked, pointing landwards.
Deane followed her outstretched finger. Riding along the top of one of
the dykes, as though unconscious of the sea flowing on either side, came
a boy on a bicycle. The bicycle was painted red, and the boy had on a
cap whose high peak gave it a semi-official look.
"He is coming here," said Deane. "It may be my letters. Or I think--"
He stopped short. He knew very well that it was a telegram the boy was
bringing, but he almost feared to say anything which would bring hope
into her face.
"It isn't--it couldn't be a telegram?" she asked, a little wistfully.
"It might be," he admitted. "I get a good many, of course."
He told the lie unblushingly. All the time he watched, with an anxiety
which seemed incredible, for the coming of the messenger.
"You must remember," he said, "that even if this should be a telegram, I
really do not expect any news yet."
She said nothing. She stood with parted lips by his side, and they
watched the boy drive his bicycle along the sea-stained bank. Once he
skidded, and she gave a little scream. Deane laughed at her, surprised
to discover something unnatural in the sound.
"Well," he said, "we will meet the boy here. I am afraid you will find a
few stock exchange quotations inside the envelope, even if he should
be--"
"It is a telegraph boy," she interrupted. "I can see the wallet."
She clung to his arm. Deane found himself patting her fragile hand with
his strong fingers. He drew her arm through his, and led her a few steps
further forward. The boy jumped off his bicycle and opened his wallet,
as he approached, with a familiar movement. Deane took the telegram into
his fingers and tore it open. His arm suddenly went round her waist.
"Miss Rowan," he said, "be brave and I will tell you some good news.
See, you can read it for yourself. The reprieve is signed."
She suddenly fell a dead weight upon his arm, and almost as quickly she
recovered herself. Her closed eyes were opened, she clung to him
passionately. "It is true?" she cried out.
He held the telegram in front of her face. "Read," he said. "'_Reprieve
signed last night. Will be communicated to Rowan this morning.
Hardaway._'--That is the name of my solicitor, so there is no possible
doubt about it. The matter is ended."
He turned to the boy, who stood looking on with wooden face. Then he
drew a coin from his pocket. "My young friend," he said, "you are in
luck. Take that and go home to your breakfast."
The boy looked at the sovereign and up at Deane. So far as his features
were capable of expression at all, they spoke of stupefaction. Then, as
though afraid that Deane might change his mind, he mounted his bicycle
and rode rapidly away.
"It is a relief to you, of course," Deane said, trying to speak in as
matter-of-fact a tone as possible; "but this thing was a certainty all
the time. I have always tried to make you believe that. Come in now, and
let us have some breakfast. You ought to have an appetite."
She followed him without a word. She seemed, indeed, like a person
dreaming, not wholly able to realize the things happening around her,
even the moments that passed. Deane waited upon her at breakfast, and
talked in a matter-of-fact way, accepting her monosyllabic answers as
natural things,--carrying on a conversation, too, with the man who
waited at the sideboard. By degrees, a more natural expression came into
her face. When at last the meal was over and the servant had left the
room, she burst suddenly into tears. Deane took her outside and placed
her in a chair, sitting by her side on the sands.
"Now," he said, "that is all over."
"When can I go back?" she asked suddenly. "They will let me see Basil. I
must go and tell him."
"He knows, of course," Deane replied, "but naturally he will want to see
you. You can leave here in about an hour. I am not sure--perhaps I may
come with you."
She sat there quietly, absolutely content to lie still and gaze out at
the sea. Presently Grant came out with a note, which Deane silently
opened. It was dated from The Cottage, Rakney.
DEAR MR. DEANE,
My niece knows, and she insists upon going to London at once.
We are all very much disturbed. If it is not troubling you too
much when you are passing this way, we should be so grateful if
you would call in for a minute.
Deane looked thoughtfully seaward, and his face hardened as he crumpled
the note up in his hand. Then he rose to his feet. "I am going in to see
about the trains for you," he said.
* * * * *
He hired a cart from the village, and they stood together on the
platform of the nearest railway station, an hour or so later. She laid
her arm upon his sleeve.
"Will you stop for a moment, please?" she said. "I am afraid I must have
seemed ungracious. After all, I ought to be very grateful to you."
He shook his head. "No!" he answered. "It is always I who must be your
debtor. I ought to have been firmer with your brother when I sent him to
this man Sinclair to make terms. It was a desperate enterprise, after
all, and I ought to have realized the danger of your brother being
tempted to use violence. To me he was nothing more than a unit of
humanity, and I took him at his word. If he had brought me the paper I
wanted, I was quite prepared to ask him no questions whatever, and he
would have been a rich man. I can't help feeling that in a sense I am
responsible for his present position and yours."
She looked away from him. Her eyes were fixed upon the horizon. She
appeared to be steadily thinking the matter out. The wind blew little
wisps of fair hair over her face. Her eyes were steadfast, her forehead
a little wrinkled. She seemed to be endeavoring to arrive at a
conscientious decision.
"No!" she said, after some time, "I cannot see that you are to blame. I
am sure that it never entered into your head that my brother might be
tempted to use violence."
Deane looked away with a little frown. In his heart he knew very well
that he was not so sure! "Well," he said, "we will let that go. At any
rate, my responsibility to you remains. Tell me what I can do? How can I
help you?"
She shook her head. "I am going back to my work," she said. "I need no
help."
"Your work?" he repeated.
She nodded, with a little sigh. "I am a typist," she said. "You know
what that means,--genteel starvation, long hours, gray days. Never mind,
I am almost used to it."
"You need be a typist no longer unless you choose," he said. "Part of
what I promised to your brother belongs to you."
She shook her head. "Don't speak of it!" she exclaimed. "I should feel
that it was blood money."
"At least let me hear from you sometimes," he said. "Don't let me lose
sight of you altogether while your brother is unable to help you."
She hesitated. Then, lifting her eyes to his, "I don't believe," she
said softly, "that you would tell me anything that was not true."
"I don't believe that I should," he answered.
"Then tell me this," she said, "honestly. When you made my brother that
offer, when you sent him to deal with this man Sinclair, can you tell me
that you had not an idea in your mind that he might be led on to do
something rash?"
Deane hesitated. He was not a man of over-strict scruples, but he hated
lies. Somehow or other, it seemed to him impossible to look at this girl
and tell her anything that was not the truth.
"I am not altogether sure," he answered. "At the back of my head there
was just the idea that your brother was desperate, that he would gain
what he wanted, somehow or other."
She turned away, and walked a little way down the platform. The train
was already in the station. She entered a carriage and sat in the
furthest corner. "Thank you," she said. "I am glad that you have told me
the truth. Would you mind going away now, please?"
"I am sorry," Deane said simply. "Remember that I only did what
ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have done in my place. I wanted
that paper, and your brother begged for just such an enterprise."
She held out her hands. "If you please!" she said. "Good-bye!"
Deane turned away. The girl was a little fool, of course. Yet as he
turned and watched the smoke of the train disappear, and thought of her
in her empty third-class carriage, alone, he was conscious of a sense of
acute depression--none the less acute because it was vague. He turned
back to the village, walking with heavy steps. It was as though a new
trouble had come into his life.
CHAPTER XVII
A NEW DANGER
Deane was shown into what was apparently the morning-room of the Sarsby
domicile by an open-mouthed and very country-looking domestic, who
regarded him all the time with unaffected curiosity. Mr. Sarsby was
sitting in an easy-chair, reading the _Times_. Directly he recognized
his visitor he showed signs of nervousness.
"Ah, Mr. Deane!" he said, rising. "How do you do, Mr. Deane?"
Deane shook hands. His host did not ask him to sit down, nor did he
himself resume his seat.
"I looked in," Deane explained, "to know what your niece had decided to
do."
"She has decided to go to London at once," Mr. Sarsby answered,--"at
once. It is very inconvenient for all of us. I am almost sorry that you
ever happened to point out the paragraph, especially as there seems to
be no property of any sort to be found."
The door was suddenly opened and Ruby Sinclair entered. There was a
frown which was almost a scowl upon her dark, handsome face. Little Mr.
Sarsby seemed suddenly to have become a person of no importance.
"Mr. Deane will excuse me," he said hurriedly, yet with a marked attempt
at stiffness. "I have to return the _Times_."
He left the room. Deane looked after him with some surprise.
"What is the matter with your uncle?" he asked the girl.
"He has just heard," she answered, "that a young lady from somewhere or
other spent the night out at the tower last night."
Deane looked at her in amazement. "And what business is it of his?" he
asked.
"I don't know," brusquely. "As a rule, gentlemen when they're living
alone don't have young lady visitors,--not to stay the night, at any
rate."
Deane laughed. "The young lady in question," he said, "came to see me on
a very important matter. If you heard anything of the storm last night,
you would understand that it was scarcely possible for any one to have
found her way from the tower to the mainland after the flood-tide was
in."
The girl nodded shortly. "It's not my business," she said. "I am glad
you came. I wanted to ask you something. Who is this man Rowan who
killed my uncle?"
Deane shook his head slowly. "No one knows very much about him," he
said. "They were out in South Africa together. It was there, perhaps,
that their quarrel, if they had one, started."
"It says in the _Times_ this morning that he has been reprieved. Why?"
she asked fiercely. "Why don't they hang him?"
"Because they came to the conclusion," he answered, "that there had been
a fight, and that it was not a deliberate murder."
"They ought to have hanged him," she declared. "It was brutal--hideous!"
"You are going to London, are you not?" he asked quietly.
Her eyes flashed. "Yes!" she answered. "I am going. I am afraid it will
be too late. All the papers declare that my uncle's possessions were of
little value. He has been robbed. I am sure he has been robbed. His
letter told me that he would have plenty of money. He would not write
and tell me that if he had nothing."
"You will be able to find out," Deane answered, a little coldly.
"I shall find out," the girl declared. "I am going to a good lawyer. He
wrote as though he had something in his possession which was worth
money. It was for that, I am sure, that this man Rowan tried to kill
him. I shall find out all about it when I get there."
"The man Rowan was arrested on the premises," Deane reminded her. "There
was no time for him to have taken anything away, and the room was locked
up by the police."
"I don't care," she answered. "Oh! Can't you understand what this means
to me?" she cried, jumping up from the chair in which she had seated
herself a moment or so before. "I am starved for life here, starved for
the want of it," she cried. "I was never meant to live in a place like
this--a life like this! It isn't fair. Other girls have clothes and
jewels, and men to admire them, and go to theatres, and see the world.
Why shouldn't I? I will! I am going to London to find out what that man
killed my uncle for, and I mean never to come back here again."
The girl was evidently in earnest. Her bosom was heaving, her dark eyes
were full of fire. Deane noticed the firm lines of her mouth, the crisp
determination of her speech, and he realized a new danger. This girl was
not one to be bribed or put off. Every word she had said she had meant.
There was a distinct change in her whole appearance since the last time
he had seen her. She was at once handsomer and less attractive. The
wistfulness of her few sad speeches to him had passed away. The vague
discontent seemed suddenly to have become focussed in a passionate anger
against this untoward stroke of fate.
"Well," said Deane at length, rising as though about to leave, "I hope
you may discover, after all, that your uncle was a man of property."
"Why won't you help me?" she asked suddenly. "You could if you would."
"Could I?" he answered. "I wonder."
"Of course you could," she declared, coming a little nearer to him. "I
suppose I seem a very ordinary discontented sort of creature to you, but
you haven't lived as many years as I have pushing against the walls of a
prison. I think I am one of those persons who would improve a good deal
with a little prosperity," she added, with a sudden smile which
transformed her face, a smile which was almost brilliant. "Why won't you
help me?"
"Do you mean that you would like me to go to London for you, and search
through your uncle's effects?" Deane asked quietly. "If you gave me a
letter, I suppose I could do that."
"Come with me, then," she begged. "I mean to do everything for myself,
but there are many little things I am ignorant about. If you would come
with me, I promise you," she added, looking into his eyes, "that you
would not find me ungrateful."
"When are you going?" he asked.
"Monday morning," she answered.
Deane walked to the window, and looked out for a moment at the tangled
wilderness of cottage flowers, which seemed to have been encouraged to
grow there in wild profusion--a brilliant spot of color, as he
remembered very well, from the sea line. In a day or so at most, this
girl might, if she realized her position, or if she were properly
advised, be in a position to bring ruin upon him. An alliance with her
was obviously the very best thing that could happen for him. Yet he felt
a certain distrust, a certain unexplained reluctance to accepting her
overtures. If she discovered her power, she would drive a hard
bargain--he knew that well enough. If she did not discover it--
He turned away and faced her suddenly. "Yes!" he said, "I'll help you if
I can. We'll go to London together on Monday morning."
A curious look came into her face. She drew him out of the room. "Come,"
she said, "I won't ask you to stay to tea, because my aunt thinks that
you are a most improper person. I'll walk with you back across the
marshes. I want you to tell me what you really think, and I want to show
you the one letter I received from my uncle...."
She read the letter to him as they walked side by side on the top of the
dyke path, which was high enough now from the receding waste of waters.
The air was unusually salt. Great masses of seaweed had been brought in
and left by the ebbing tide. The wind had freshened since the morning.
She walked on in supreme disregard of her disordered hair and skirts.
"You see," she said, "he writes distinctly as one who has, or expects to
have, money. Listen! 'I did no particular good out there,'" she read,
"'but I have brought something home with me which will mean a fortune of
some sort or another. I expect you have had quite enough of your country
life, and you won't object to coming and sharing it with me. I am rather
a rough sort, and I have a few vices that your respected uncle Sarsby
knows all about, but I fancy you will get a better time with me than
with that solemn old prig. I'd like to do what I can for you, though we
haven't seen much of one another, but your mother was the best sister a
man ever had, and for her sake I look upon you as the only relative I've
got worth counting.'"
She looked up at him eagerly. "Now tell me," she asked, "would he have
written that if he hadn't something--jewels, or estate, or something of
that sort, which he knew was going to bring him in money?"
"It doesn't sound so," Deane admitted.
She thrust the letter back into her pocket. "You will help me," she
said, her face glowing, her eyes full of anticipation. "We will go
through his papers carefully. We will find out, somehow or other, what
he meant. Oh! It is good to think that I have only a few more days to
eat and to sleep in this ghastly wilderness."
"You may be disappointed," he reminded her.
"Never!" she answered. "My uncle was no fool. What he had I shall
discover."
"You may be disappointed," he continued, "in the things which wealth
itself brings you. You may find life not so very much more wonderful a
thing in the city than here in the wilderness."
"Don't you believe it!" she exclaimed, with a scornful laugh. "I am not
that sort. I am not an artist who can sit about here for days and potter
about with a paintbox, and look at a sunset or a streak of wild
lavender, or the shimmering of the yellow sands, as though it were
something so marvelous that life itself stood still while they realized
it. I like beautiful places and beautiful things, but I hate the
impersonality of it all. I want to feel the touch of lace and furs and
fine linen, to eat soft food, to listen to music, to ride when I want
to, to sleep when I want to, to have friends who admire me, men friends
worth speaking to, different from these yokels round here. I suppose I
have got it in my blood," she added, with a little laugh. "The
milk-and-water ways of life don't attract me. I want the big things."
"Do you know what the big things are?" he asked.
"When I have found my way where I mean to find it, I shall know," she
answered. "Here, one might live till one's hair was gray and one's looks
had passed, live--if you call it living--and never once see over the
wall. When I have come so that I can see over the wall, then I will tell
you, if you are still curious, what the big things of life are for me!"
CHAPTER XVIII
AN EXPENSIVE KEY
It was three o'clock in the morning when Deane softly opened the door of
his bedroom in the Hotel Universal, and looked up and down the side
corridor. There was no one in sight, no sound of any one passing in the
main corridor, a few yards away. For several moments he stood and
listened intently. Then he moved a few yards to the left, and stopped
opposite another door. He scrutinized the number,--27. It was the number
he sought. He felt in his pocket for the keys which he had collected
from various sources. One by one he tried them in the lock. In vain! Not
one fitted. He tried the handle of the door softly. There was no doubt
about it. The door was securely fastened. He recognized at once the
failure of his first attempt, and returned to his room. His bed was as
yet undisturbed. He had not even changed the tweed travelling suit in
which he had journeyed up from Rakney. It was a fool's errand, after
all, he thought, on which he had come. Yet somehow or other, after his
conversation with Ruby Sinclair, after he had realized how thorough her
search would indeed be, how convinced she was that somewhere amongst the
effects of the dead man lay the secret of wealth, he had realized more
completely than ever before the danger in which he stood. Granted, even,
that no suspicion of complicity with Rowan attached to him, his
financial ruin would be none the less complete if that paper should ever
come into the hands of people who understood its worth. Never had the
situation seemed so clear, so dangerous, as that night after he had
walked home with the girl and turned his face again toward the sea.
Something in the very desolation of the marshes seemed to help thought,
perhaps by the absence of any distracting object. There was a sense of
breadth about the place. As he walked, with only the murmur of the sea
in his ears, he saw things clearly. He saw himself in the prime of life,
suddenly flung from the place to which he had climbed, flung down to
join all those poor millions of strugglers whose first foot has yet to
be planted upon the first rung of the great ladder. He was too old to
begin at the beginning. There was no place for him down amongst those on
whom failure had already placed her mark. He could not have borne it. To
be stripped of his riches, his name, the position of which he was
without a doubt proud, to suffer the breaking of his engagement, the
downfall of all his ambitions,--the very thought of it was intolerable.
And in the deep silence of that night, as he listened to the gurgling of
the sea below, and the faint movement of the wind across the level land,
he realized, with a sudden pain at his heart, the danger in which he
stood. In three days the girl would be there. Scotland Yard would send
one of its myrmidons with her. She would have free access to all the
dead man's belongings. She would take with her a lawyer. Every scrap of
paper the man had possessed, every trifling object, would have its
value. The Little Anna Gold-Mine was world famous. There would be no
chance of their overlooking a single document bearing such a name.
Before he had reached his strange dwelling-place he had come to a
resolution. Early next morning, stopping only to leave a note telling
the girl where to find him when she arrived in London, he was off by the
early train. By means of a little diplomacy he had succeeded in gaining
a room within a few doors of the one in which Sinclair had been killed.
Only a few feet of wall separated him from the room in which, somewhere
or other, was to be found the paper he coveted. Well, his first attempt
had been a failure. He knew quite well that the place was paraded by
night watchmen, and that any attempt to gain an entrance into the room
by orthodox means would result in prompt discovery. There was nothing to
be done until the morrow. He threw himself upon the bed and tried to
sleep. Waking with the first gleam of daylight, he took off his clothes,
bathed, and made a leisurely toilet. Then he rang for the _valet de
chambre_. The man was a pleasant-faced, loquacious sort of fellow. Deane
talked to him for a while, and then made his effort.
"Wasn't it upon this floor," he asked, "that a murder took place
lately?"
The valet looked around him for a moment before answering. "Yes, sir!"
he replied. "In the very next room. We are not allowed to talk about it
more than we can help."
Deane nodded. All the time he was watching the man, wondering how far he
dared go. "Look here," he said "you seem an honest fellow. I suppose
you'd have no objection to bettering yourself in life?"
"No objection in the slightest, sir," the man answered.
"I am on the staff of a newspaper," Deane said slowly, "and my people
are particularly anxious that I should inspect the interior of the room
in which that murder was committed. Your people downstairs have
absolutely refused to allow me to do anything of the sort. I have taken
this room in the hope of being able to get in there. Do you think there
is any chance for me?"
"I should say not, sir," the man answered. "The door is locked, and Mr.
Hartshorn himself, the manager, has taken the key."
"There isn't such a thing as a duplicate, I suppose?" Deane asked.
"Not that I know of, sir," the man answered.
"You couldn't suggest any means by which I could enter that room, even
if it were an affair of say fifty pounds to you?" Deane asked calmly.
The man started. Fifty pounds was a great deal of money. On the other
hand, the fifty pounds would take some earning. "I am afraid I can't,
sir," he said. "There is no duplicate key that I know of, and in any
case I dare not run the risk."
"Fifty pounds is not enough, perhaps," Deane said. "Money is no
particular object to me. If you said that you thought you could provide
me with the key for a hundred pounds, I would willingly pay it."
"I am afraid not, sir," the man answered, turning as though to leave the
room.
"Two hundred pounds!" Deane said.
"It isn't a matter of money, sir," the man declared. "I daren't do it. I
should be certain to be found out, and I should be sent away without a
character."
"I will take you into my service," Deane said.
The man shook his head. "Thank you, sir," he said. "My character is
worth a good deal to me. I think I'll keep out of this, if you don't
mind."
Deane called him back imperatively. "Let us understand one another," he
said, drawing something from his pocket. "Are you going down to the
manager to tell him what I have told you?"
The man hesitated. Deane held out a five-pound note. "There is no reason
for you to do so, you know," Deane said, "just as there is no reason why
you should not accept this tip."
The valet hesitated, and finally accepted the five-pound note which
Deane was holding out.
"I am sure I don't know why I should take it, sir," he said, "but there
is no reason, after all, why I should say anything of what you have been
talking about, downstairs."
Deane sat in his chair, waiting. There was a knock at the door and a
chambermaid entered, to retire at once in confusion. Deane looked at her
curiously. Something in her figure and her start had seemed familiar to
him. He got up and rang the bell. In a moment or two a waiter appeared.
He was obviously a German, dark and sallow. He spoke imperfect English,
and there was a gleam of cupidity in his eyes which to Deane seemed
hopeful.
"Bring me some tea at once," he ordered,--"nothing to eat."
The man departed, and reappeared in a few minutes.
"Anything else, sir?" he asked, after he had set down the tray.
Deane did not answer him directly. "By the way," he said finally,
"wasn't there a murder committed in one of these rooms?"
"It was next door, sir," the man answered.
"The room is locked up?" Deane asked.
"Yes, sir!"
"That is a pity," Deane remarked. "Do you know who has the key? I should
very much like just to have a look around."
The waiter shook his head. "The key is downstairs in Mr. Hartshorn's
office, sir, and we have no duplicate here. The police who came, they
desired that no one should enter the room until they had removed the
effects to Scotland Yard."
"So I was told downstairs," Deane remarked. "Do you suppose," he
continued, "that it would be possible to get hold of a duplicate key? I
should like very much to see the interior of that room--if possible to
take a photograph of it for my newspaper. I am willing to pay."
The waiter shook his head reluctantly. "I do not think that there is a
duplicate key," he said, with his eyes fixed upon Deane's right hand.
"Perhaps you could make inquiries," Deane suggested smoothly. "I want to
get a photograph of the inside of the room for my people, if possible.
It would be worth quite a great deal of money."
The man was impressed. "I will go away and see," he said slowly.
"Keep this to yourself," Deane ordered. "I don't want it all over the
hotel."
The man made a sign of assent and withdrew. Deane rang for the
chambermaid. Once, twice, three times he rang, without response. Then a
middle-aged person came shuffling in, very much out of breath. Deane
gave her some trivial order.
"By the way," he asked, "are you the chambermaid who waits on this
room?"
"No!" she answered, with some hesitation. "The regular chambermaid is
down at her breakfast."
Deane nodded. "Will you tell her," he asked, "that I should like to see
her as soon as she is up? I want to see about some laundry," he added.
The woman disappeared. Deane was left alone once more. He unpacked some
books, and made himself comfortable in an easy-chair. He was not able
even to descend to the smoking-room. Mr. Stirling Deane, it was well
known, had left town for Scotland. Mr. B. Stocks, who had arrived at the
hotel the night before and taken this room, was a person who had
particular reasons for not desiring to be seen even in the precincts of
the hotel. Deane settled himself down to read--a somewhat difficult
task. By the time he had smoked several cigarettes, there was a soft tap
at the door and the waiter reappeared.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said.
"Go ahead," Deane answered.
"I have found a key in the service-room which I think would open Number
27."
Deane nodded. "Very well," he said, "let me have the use of it to-night,
and I will give you twenty pounds."
The man moistened his lips with his tongue. Twenty pounds was a
wonderful sum! But--!
"There is a good deal of risk about it, sir," the man said slowly, "and
I have to divide with the night-porter, who told me where to find this
key."
"Very well," Deane answered, "I will give you twenty pounds each,--no
more."
The man placed the key silently in his hands, and Deane counted out
eight five-pound notes.
"If I were you, sir," he said, "if you want to be alone in the room and
be sure of no one seeing you, I should use it between four and five
to-morrow morning. Everyone is off duty then except the night-porter."
Deane nodded. "By the way," he said, "do you know anything about the
chambermaid on this floor--the young, slim one?"
The waiter shook his head. "She has only just come."
"Do you know her name?" asked Deane.
The man smiled. "It is always the same," he answered,--"always Mary."
"She would not be allowed in 27?" Deane asked. "She would not be likely
to be there to clean it out, or anything of that sort?"'
The man shook his head again. "No one is allowed to enter it," he said.
"No one has been in but the detectives and lawyers."
Deane dismissed the man and settled down once more to his reading. He
found it difficult, however, to concentrate his thoughts. The key was on
the chair by his side. It was all he could do to restrain himself from
stealing down the corridor and commencing his search.
CHAPTER XIX
THE SEARCH
Deane remembered afterwards, with a painful exactness, every step which
he took in his stockinged feet down the dimly-lit corridor. Only one of
the electric lights had been left burning, and that one was encased in a
shade of red glass, and was set in the wall facing him. A few seconds
ago he had heard Big Ben strike four o'clock. For the last two hours he
had sat in his room and waited. Time seemed to have stood still. In that
two hours he had seen himself stripped of all his possessions,
dishonored, friendless. He had seen himself married to Lady Olive,
richer and more prosperous than ever, a successful politician, a man on
whom the eyes of the world were turned always with respect and approval.
Hope and fear had swung in his mind like the movement of a pendulum. All
that he needed was that paper! If once he could see it burning into
white ashes, or torn into a hundred pieces, he knew that there was
nothing in the world strong enough to bar his progress.
Four o'clock at last! At the sound of the hour he had sprung to his
feet. Before the echoes of the last stroke had died away he was
absolutely committed to his enterprise. For a moment he stood outside
the door of his room, which he had left ajar. He looked toward the main
corridor and listened intently; there was no sound to be heard. The
night watchman--if, indeed, he were making his rounds--was nowhere in
that vicinity. In all the great hotel, not a soul seemed to be stirring.
Deane drew one long breath, and without a second's hesitation stole
forward until he stood in front of Number 27. Once more he looked around
him. The lights from all the transoms in sight had been extinguished.
There was only that dimly burning electric light at the end of the
corridor, to dissipate the gloom. He fitted the key into the lock and
turned it. The door swung open. Deane closed it behind him, turned on
the electric light, and gazed around him with fast beating heart. He was
there at last! Within this room, if anywhere, was his salvation!
It was, after all, a very ordinary hotel apartment. There was a small
single bed, a wardrobe, a toilet table and chest of drawers, a hard,
uninviting-looking sofa, and an easy-chair with a stiff back, and
armless. Upon the bed were laid out a number of articles of wearing
apparel, and upon the floor were two empty portmanteaus. Upon the
dressing-table were a number of papers, arranged with some appearance of
method. The toilet things were still in their places. Everything was
arranged in a stiff and precise condition. It was evident that official
hands had been at work.
Deane's rapid glance around lasted barely a few seconds. Then he moved
toward the dressing-table and commenced a careful search amongst the
papers there. One by one he glanced them through,--a bill for clothes, a
restaurant account, half-a-dozen counterfoils of theatre and music-hall
tickets, an account for wines and cigars consumed on the steamer
_Arizona_, homeward bound from Cape Town. There was the address of a
manicurist, a programme of the _Empire_. Very soon Deane had come to the
end of them. From the first to the last, there was not a single document
there of any interest or importance.
He turned away toward the clothes which were laid out upon the bed. One
by one he lifted them up and laid them down again, until he came to the
gray suit which the man Sinclair had been wearing on the day when he had
made his eventful visit to the city. Deane held up the coat, and a
little exclamation almost escaped from his lips as he saw where in a
certain place the lining showed signs of stitching, as though something
had been sewn inside the pocket. He thrust his hand there. There was an
opening, but it was empty! He tried the other side, but in vain. Then he
began slowly to realize that this search of his was doomed to end in
failure. There was nowhere else to look. He glanced at his watch.
Although it seemed to him that he had been in the little room for hours,
he had indeed been there for barely five minutes.
He moved toward the door, opened it softly, and listened outside in the
corridor. There was no sound of anyone stirring, no sign of life or
movement anywhere. He returned to the room and renewed his search. One
by one he lifted up the different articles of clothing and felt in the
pockets. His search was rewarded with the discovery of a single
halfpenny in an odd waistcoat pocket. He left the clothes alone then and
went through the papers once more, with a similar lack of success.
Softly he opened all the drawers, ransacked the wardrobe, searched every
inch of the room. When at last he desisted, it was because there was
nowhere else to look, nothing else to attempt. He stood up in the middle
of the room and drew a little breath. He had found nothing, nothing had
transpired to compensate in any way for the risk which he had run. Yet
there was one consolation. It was scarcely possible that Ruby Sinclair
could be more successful than he. The paper which might make her fortune
and ruin him was not here.
Deane turned at last toward the door. There was no need for him to
prolong the risk he ran. He would return to his room, and leave the
hotel later in the morning.
He took a few cautious steps toward the door. Suddenly he stopped short
and held his breath. Very slowly he turned his head, and listened
intently. Someone was stirring in the next room. There was a connecting
door, hidden by a curtain, and even as he stood there he heard the
handle shake as though it were being turned. He leaned forward and
turned out the electric light. Standing there in the darkness he
distinctly heard a key inserted in the lock of the hidden door. He heard
it softly opened and the curtain pushed back. There was someone else in
the room, someone else whom he could not see, someone else who also took
an interest in the effects of the murdered man!
There was an interval of several seconds--it seemed minutes--it might
well have been hours. Then the stealthy footsteps came towards him. A
little stiff rustle of draperies proclaimed the sex of the intruder.
Without a second's warning, the electric light flashed out all over the
room. The girl would have screamed, but Deane, who was prepared, leaned
forward, and his hand suddenly closed over her mouth. She looked at him
with dilated eyes.
"You!" she exclaimed. "You!"
"Good God!" he answered. "Winifred Rowan!"
Their mutual surprise was something paralyzing. They drew apart and
looked at one another as they might have done at ghosts.
"What do you want here?" he asked hoarsely.
Was it his fancy, he wondered, or did her lips curl for a moment in
something like mockery?
"I came to repay a debt," she whispered. "I came to find the paper which
you are afraid may fall into someone else's hands. I came to search for
it, but it is not here."
"And I," Deane answered.
"You have found it, perhaps?" she exclaimed.
He shook his head. "It has gone!"
"Perhaps he never had it," she whispered.
Deane shook his head. He was being led away by the excitement, the
tenseness of the moment,--the unexpectedness of the whole situation. "He
showed it to me," he answered, "only just before that night."
"Ah!"
The monosyllable seemed to leave her lips dry. She moistened them with
her tongue, and moved a little towards him. There was something in her
face which he could not recognize. And then, before further speech was
possible, they heard something which, coming so unexpectedly against
such a background of silence, terrified them both. An electric bell
somewhere close at hand was ringing out its sharp summons into the
night.
"What is that?" Deane asked quickly.
"Someone is ringing from one of the numbers opposite," she answered.
"Get back to your room quickly. They have heard us talking. Someone will
be in here to search."
"But you?" he objected.
"I am safe," she answered. "I am on duty on this floor. I have something
to do in the next room. Quick!"
He slipped from the door. The little side corridor was as yet empty. For
a second or two he listened intently. There were no footsteps as yet
audible in the main corridor. In half-a-dozen swift strides he reached
the door of his own room, turned the handle, and passed inside. Almost
immediately there were footsteps in the corridor outside. The bell of
the room opposite was answered. Again silence! The seconds grew into
minutes, and the minutes passed away. Then his door was suddenly opened
from the outside, softly and silently. Winifred Rowan stood there on the
threshold of his room, with the handle of the door still in her hand,
and to his fancy there was something ominous in the way she looked at
him.
"You need search no more," she said. "I have found the paper."
He held out his hand. "The reward is yours!" he declared.
She drew away from him. "I shall claim it very soon," she said. "Ring
your bell at seven o'clock, when I shall be on duty, and I will bring it
to you. Hush!"
She glided away and closed the door. Deane drew a long breath. So it was
over, then,--over, and he had won!
CHAPTER XX
IN DOUBT
Punctually at seven o'clock next morning Deane rang his bell. Once more
the fat old lady entered, with her amiable smile and slow movements.
"Some tea, sir?" she asked.
Deane looked at her for a moment without speaking. "When does the other
chambermaid come on duty?" he asked.
"She ought to be on now," was the answer, "but she hasn't come. I've
just sent the 'boots' up to her room."
Deane ordered some hot water and lay still for half-an-hour. Then he
rang the bell again. The same woman came.
"Would you like your tea, sir?" she asked.
"If you please," he answered.
She was already half-way out of the door before he stopped her.
"You are still on duty, then?" he said.
"The other chambermaid can't be found, sir," she answered. "Her bed
hasn't been slept in, and she doesn't seem to be anywhere about the
place."
Deane nodded. It was, after all, perhaps the most sensible thing she
could do to get clear away! "Send me my tea at eight o'clock," he
ordered, "and let me have a bath at once."
"The valet shall come and tell you when it is ready, sir," she answered.
He passed a tip across to the woman, who accepted it. "Tell the waiter
when he brings the tea to give me my bill," he said.
In an hour's time Deane had left the hotel. He had seen nothing more of
Winifred Rowan, and on the whole he was disposed to applaud her
precaution. He drove at once to his rooms, where Grant, his man, was
already installed.
"I shall catch the mid-day train to Scotland, Grant," he announced.
"Telephone up for seats and sleeping-berths. Also telephone to the
office, and tell them to ring up here at once if a young lady should
make any inquiries for me. Perhaps they had better send her on here."
He went out and did some shopping. The sun was shining, and a soft west
wind blowing. London, which seems to hold its populace longer than any
other great city, was gay, almost joyous. He had to elbow his way
through crowds as he passed along Piccadilly. The streets and shops were
thronged. The sky above was blue. The rare sunshine seemed to make
cheerful even this most sombre of cities.
Deane had the feeling of a man who has escaped from a great danger,--who
has been able to throw off a heavy weight. This miserable document of
Sinclair's was as good as in his possession! After all, Basil Rowan was
not suffering in vain. The girl should have every penny that he had
promised her brother! Her way in life should be made easy! It was a
very small price, indeed, to be free from such torture as he had
suffered during the last few weeks. He bought presents a little
recklessly--presents for Olive--something, too, for Winifred Rowan, a
gold cigarette-case for himself. He ordered a great basket of flowers to
take with him to Scotland, and paid a visit to his gunmaker's. Then he
returned to his chambers, fully expecting to have some news of Winifred
Rowan.
"Any one rung up?" he asked his man.
"No one, sir, of any importance," was the answer.
"Did you ask the office about Miss Rowan?"
"No young lady at all has inquired for you there, sir," Grant answered.
Deane was a little surprised, but after all what did it matter? He
travelled up to Scotland with a lighter heart than he had carried for
months. Lady Olive, who met him early in the morning at the small
wayside station which was nearest to her father's seat, was amazed at
his vivacity.
"I expected to find you a pale, worn-out thing," she remarked, as their
motor-car climbed the white, stone-bordered road which crossed the
heather-covered mountain. "You don't look as though you needed a change
at all."
"I've found so swift a tonic, you see," he answered, pressing her hand.
She laughed gayly. This was more the man as he had been before the days
of their engagement! "I think it is the smell of the powder," she said.
"You men are all like schoolboys for your holidays. Father says that the
birds are much too wild, and that it will be all even you can do to hit
them."
Deane smiled. "There is nothing in the world," he answered, "which I
want to do so much as to lie up there in the heather and close my eyes,
and feel the sun and the wind."
"In other words," she said, "you are lazy!"
"Is that laziness?" he asked. "I don't think so."
"Rest, then," she said.
"Ah! That is a very different thing!" he replied. "We all need rest."
"Especially you," she said, "who carry about with you always the memory
of some things from which you can never escape."
He looked at her quickly, but it was obvious that her speech was wholly
unpremeditated.
"I often wonder," she said calmly, "when I see you in the evenings, how
you manage to shake off all your anxieties so easily, for I suppose,"
she continued, "that success, like everything else, carries always its
anxieties."
"Sometimes more than failure," he answered.
"Well," she continued, "it doesn't seem possible to associate the word
'failure' with you. Some day you must tell me the whole story of your
life. I can scarcely believe that there has ever been a time when you
haven't succeeded in anything you undertook."
He laughed grimly. "You should have been with me in Africa," he said,
"after the fighting was over. We expected to go about picking up gold
almost on the streets."
"You were too sanguine," she laughed.
"It was hard enough work to live," he answered. "I tried many
things,--failures, all of them!"
"Until the Little Anna Gold-Mine," she remarked.
"Until the Little Anna Gold-Mine," he assented, "and that, at first,
seemed hopeless enough. The mine had been deserted twice. The natives
there had a name for it which means the Grave of Dead Hopes!"
They turned into the avenue, and the house was at once visible, standing
on the edge of a lake, large and a little bare. The lawns and gardens
were brilliant with color, and the hills on the other side of the water
were purple with heather.
"Well, here is all the rest you want," she said. "We haven't a neighbor
within six miles, and a most harmless lot of guests."
He drew a long sigh of content. The tragedy, indeed, of the last few
weeks seemed to lie far behind in some other world!
CHAPTER XXI
RUBY IS DISAPPOINTED
The solicitor hung up his silk hat, motioned his two visitors to seats,
and took his accustomed place in front of his writing-table. "I am
afraid," he said, turning toward Mr. Sarsby, but in reality addressing
his niece, "that your visit to town has been, in some respects, a
disappointment to you, especially," he continued, "bearing in mind the
letter which you, my dear young lady, have just shown me. Still, there
is no getting away from facts. We have carefully examined every paper
and every portion of the personal belongings of the deceased, and I am
afraid we must come to the decision that there is nothing in those
effects worth taking away."
"It certainly seems not," Mr. Sarsby assented. "I must say that from the
first I have discouraged my niece in her expectations. I never knew
Sinclair, but everyone spoke of him as being a shiftless and impossible
sort of person."
The lawyer nodded. "From the state of his effects," he remarked, "that
seems very possible, and yet one cannot help wondering what it was that
he had in his mind when he wrote to your niece,--what it was, too, that
induced him to take rooms in a hotel like the Universal."
Ruby Sinclair rose slowly to her feet. She came to the table before
which the solicitor was seated, and she looked down at him with blazing
eyes. "Can't you see, you two," she exclaimed,--"can't you understand
that the man has been robbed of something? He would never have written
me in that strain if he had not believed that he possessed something
which was at any rate worth money, and a great deal of money. He would
never, with only twenty pounds in his pocket, have gone to a hotel like
the Universal, drunk champagne there, and lived as though his means were
unlimited. These things are ridiculous!"
"But, my dear young lady," the lawyer commenced,--
"Can't you see the truth?" she exclaimed. "My uncle was murdered. Why?
What was the motive? Robbery! Do you think that it was for the sake of
the twenty pounds or so that he had on him, and which were found
untouched? The man Rowan was in South Africa with my uncle,--he knew his
business. It was no ordinary quarrel, this. I tell you that Rowan robbed
my uncle of something--I don't know what--but something which was the
backbone of this letter!" she exclaimed, dashing it upon the
table,--"something which justified him in staying at the Universal,
something which must be found!"
The lawyer nodded. "That point of view," he admitted, "has occurred to
me, I must confess. And yet, you must remember that the man Rowan was
arrested upon the premises. He had nothing with him which could by any
chance have belonged to the dead man."
The girl stamped her foot impatiently. "Have you read the evidence at
the trial?" she asked. "It is very clear that this man Rowan was no
fool. Whatever he wanted from my uncle, he secured and disposed of
before he was arrested. The last thing he would do would be to carry
about with him on his person anything which he had taken from my uncle."
"What you suggest may be possible, of course," the lawyer remarked,
"but, unfortunately, we have not the slightest indication of it. The man
Rowan was not seen to speak to anyone in the hotel, and it is known that
he did not leave it after the quarrel until his arrest."
"And you are content to leave it like that?" the girl asked.
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "It is not that we are content," he
said, a little stiffly, "but there certainly seems to be no cause for
any further action."
The girl turned to Mr. Sarsby. "We had better go," she said abruptly.
"There is nothing to be gained by staying here."
The solicitor accompanied them to the door. "Miss Sinclair," he said, "I
can sympathize with your disappointment, but I do beg of you not to go
looking for a mare's nest. It is disappointing, of course, to find that
your uncle was practically a pauper, especially after that letter of
his, but, on the other hand, men in his position, I am afraid, are
proverbially given to exaggeration."
"Thank you," the girl said sharply, "I think that we will not talk about
this any more."
Mr. Sarsby and his niece walked slowly up a little side street which led
into the Strand. The former, who was sharing to some extent his niece's
disappointment, found compensation in the thought of a speedy return to
Rakney.
"I am afraid, Ruby," he said, "that you are very much disappointed, and
it seems to me that we have wasted our railway fares to London. It can't
be helped. We may as well make the best of it and get back at once. I
can see no reason why we should not catch the three o'clock train. I
shall be able to play my match, then, with Colonel Forsitt to-morrow
morning."
"You can go and play your match if you want to," the girl answered. "I
am going to stay in London."
"To stay in London?" Mr. Sarsby repeated.
"I mean it," the girl answered. "I don't mean to be robbed. I mean to
stay here and find out why this man Rowan quarrelled with my uncle, and
what my uncle meant when he wrote to me about a fortune. You go back, if
you like," she continued. "Give me five pounds to stay here with, and
I'll come back when I've found out the truth."
Mr. Sarsby was aghast. He looked at his niece with wide-open eyes. What
had come to her that she should speak of such a sum as five pounds
almost carelessly!
"I shall do nothing of the sort," he answered decidedly, "nor shall I
allow you to stay up here alone--a most improper proceeding, I should
call it,--quite unheard of. We will go back to the hotel, pay our bill,
have a little lunch at an A B C shop, and catch the three o'clock train
home."
"If you won't let me have the five pounds," she answered, "all right.
Good-bye!"
She turned abruptly away, and before his astonished eyes plunged into
the stream of traffic, making for the other side of the street. He
followed her as soon as he saw a safe opening, and found her on the
point of entering a small restaurant.
"My dear Ruby," he exclaimed sharply, "you are mad! How dared you leave
me like that?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I have been mad," she answered, "to live
that awful life down at Rakney for these last few years. I've had enough
of it, uncle. I am here, and I am going to stay here. If I can't succeed
in what I am going to undertake, I shall try and find some work."
Mr. Sarsby gasped. It was a wholly unexpected revolt. "You mean to say
that you don't want to come back to Rakney?"
"Never, if I can help it!" the girl answered. "I hate the place. I hate
the life. I am tired, sick to death of it all!" she cried passionately,
"and I would as soon come up here and live for a week or two, and then
throw myself into the Thames, as go on with it any longer. If you won't
let me have the five pounds," she continued, "I have enough jewelry with
me to fetch about that. The money would only mean a week or two longer."
"But where would you live?" he exclaimed. "What would you do?"
"That is my affair," she answered simply. "First of all, though, I
should go to Mr. Deane, and I should ask him to help me. Any man of
common sense would agree with me at once in believing that my uncle was
robbed."
"But your aunt?" Mr. Sarsby exclaimed weakly.
"My aunt can get on very well without me," the girl declared.
Mr. Sarsby felt that a situation had arisen with which he was unable to
cope. The only thing that occurred to him to do was to temporize. "You
will have to come back to the hotel," he said, "to get your luggage. We
will talk it over on the way there."
"Just as you please," the girl answered carelessly, "only so far as I am
concerned, there is nothing to talk over."
Mr. Sarsby hailed a 'bus which deposited them presently within a few
yards of the semi-private hotel in Montague Street at which they were
staying. It was one of those establishments which, from being a small
boarding-house, had blossomed out into a hotel, with all the outward
signs of its more prosperous rivals. There was an entrance hall, a
reception office, and two long-limbed giants in light blue livery, who
spoke every language except their own. The people who frequented it were
either Americans, or people from the isolated country places, such as
Mr. Sarsby and his niece.
"I am not going to talk anything over until I have had some lunch," the
girl declared. "We need not go out. It is only eighteenpence each here.
You can afford that, especially as you are probably going to be rid of
me forever."
Mr. Sarsby frowned. "We will lunch here if you prefer it," he said. "I
am not aware that I have hesitated at anything on the score of expense."
The girl laughed. There was a note in her mirth which was strange to Mr.
Sarsby. He relinquished his well-worn silk hat to a boy in buttons,
straightened his old-fashioned tie before a passing mirror, and led the
girl into the dining-room. The size of the apartment, the number of the
waiters, the indefinable sense of being in a great city, which had
oppressed him since the train had rolled into the terminus on his
arrival, once more had its effect upon him. He felt sure that his niece
understood nothing of what she was talking about. He drank bottled beer
with his lunch, and soon summoned up courage to reopen the matter.
"It was a very good idea of yours, my dear Ruby," he said, "to lunch
here. I am sure that for the money it is a most excellent meal."
She gave vent to a little interjection which might have meant anything.
If he had not been so sure that she was unused to such magnificence, he
would have believed that it was intended to indicate a certain amount of
contempt at her entertainment.
"And now," Mr. Sarsby continued, "let me speak to you seriously."
The suggestion that there had been anything of mirth from which Mr.
Sarsby desired to lead the way appealed to the girl's sense of humor.
Her lips parted, and the sullen discontent of her face was for a moment
lightened.
"Very well," she said, "let us be serious. Go on. Tell me what you have
to say."
"What I want to put before you is briefly this," he declared. "You do
not understand the impossibility of a young girl barely twenty years
old, with your"--he coughed a little--"personal attractions, being left
alone in London. Of course, it is difficult for me to explain to you
exactly what I mean."
"You needn't," the girl interrupted contemptuously. "Do you think that I
am a fool? I know all about those risks which people speak about with
bated breath, and I should like you to know that I am quite able to take
care of myself. I am not afraid, so I do not know why anyone need be
afraid for me."
Mr. Sarsby looked at her and wondered where amongst the wastes and
wind-swept places of his lonely home had the girl acquired the knowledge
which she alluded to so scornfully,--had she learned, too, he reflected,
to carry herself, as she had done since their arrival, with an ease and
assurance which he had tried in vain to emulate. He realized at that
moment that all further argument would be wasted. Nevertheless, he
continued to ease his conscience.
"You may know a good deal," he said, "or think you do,--girls nowadays
read and talk of most surprising things,--but London is not a safe place
for a young girl, whatever you may say, especially a young girl without
enough money to live on."
"I suppose," she said, laughing at him openly, "that Rakney is a safe
place. Well, I have tried it for a good many years, and I have had
enough. You needn't be afraid," she continued, "that I shall return to
Rakney in the guise of a prodigal daughter. If I don't succeed in
tracing Richard Sinclair's fortune, I shall find something else to do.
If you will give me the five pounds I ask for, it will make things
easier. If not, I shall get on without it."
He felt that he was being weak. Even his conscience told him that
greater firmness was necessary. And yet he recognized something in the
girl's demeanor which assured him absolutely that any protests were
hopeless. There was a hidden strength there, shared by neither her aunt
nor himself,--something which kept her apart from them,--which made him
half believe, in spite of himself, that what she set herself to do she
would accomplish.
"At least," he said, "we must know where you are going to live."
"There is no need for you to stay in London," she answered, "while I
look about for a room. I know exactly the sort of place I am going to
take. I am going out in the Tube to one of the suburbs, where a bedroom
is not very expensive, and I shall take my meals out. It will cost me
very little to live, and five pounds will go quite a long way. By the
time it is spent, I think that I shall have discovered something. I will
not write you for any more money, I promise."
Mr. Sarsby sighed. "I suppose you must have your own way," he said. "I
don't know what your aunt will say."
She laughed. They had finished their luncheon and had risen from the
table. "Enough about my aunt," she said. "She will have all the anxiety
of her preserves upon her mind directly, and I think she will be glad
not to be bothered with me. You catch your three o'clock train, and play
your golf match to-morrow."
"I suppose I may as well," he said weakly, "although I never can putt
after a railway journey."
"Go and try, anyhow," she answered. "We will say good-bye to one another
here, if you don't mind. The porter will take care of my luggage until I
have taken my room."
"I suppose if I were to stay up with you for a few days," he began,--
"Please, uncle, don't!" she began firmly. "It isn't any use. You have
been kind to me in your way, but the life at Rakney is horrible to me. I
have made up my mind to have no more of it. You've done your best for
me, you can't do more. Good-bye! There is your bag, and you haven't too
much time to catch the three o'clock train. Take the first turn to the
left from here, and book to King's Cross by the Tube. Good-bye!"
Mr. Sarsby picked up his bag and departed without any further protest.
The girl stood upon the steps and watched him, and as she watched, some
of the darkness seemed to pass away from her face. He disappeared around
the corner. She was alone--free, at any rate! She drew a long breath,
and the dull streets and gray sky seemed suddenly to have become like
the walls and canopy of a new paradise.
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER I
FREE TO DIE
At about quarter past ten in the morning, a man, still young, but
deathly pale, with hollow cheeks and receding eyes, stood on the edge of
the pavement outside a great and gloomy-looking building. A nail-studded
door had just been opened and closed to let him pass. The attendant, who
wore prison livery, leaned forward curiously to look at him as he walked
out with uncertain footsteps. The prison doctor stood by his side and
called a four-wheel cab.
"You are sure," he said, "that you have somewhere to go to, Rowan?"
"Quite sure, sir," the man answered.
"Keep your courage up, my man," added the doctor. "If your friends can
afford it, go down to the South at once. You will find it easier there.
There's your cab. You have some money, have you not?"
"Plenty, thank you, doctor," Rowan answered. "You've been kind to me,
sir," he added. "Thank you!"
"There wasn't much I could do," the doctor answered, helping him into
the cab, "except to get you out of this hole. Make the most of your time
now. Good luck to you!"
The cab rolled off. Rowan, after the first few minutes' exhaustion, due
to his unaccustomed preparations, leaned forward on the seat, looking
out with hungry, wistful eyes upon the world which he had scarcely hoped
to see again. Very soon the full flood of London traffic was flowing
past him, the streams of men and women jostling one another upon the
pavements, the long, tangled thread of moving vehicles, taximeter cabs,
hansoms, and wagons. The sun was shining, the faces of the people seemed
to him, accustomed to the white, hopeless countenances of the men he had
passed in his daily exercises and in the prison infirmary, unusually
buoyant and cheerful. It was a glad world, this, into which he had come,
a world which he was so soon to leave. It was hard to think he was free
only that he might crawl away into some corner where he could die.
The cab stopped at last before a block of offices in a by-street of the
city. Rowan reluctantly alighted, and crossing the pavement entered the
building. He passed through a swing door to a desk. A small boy poked
his head out of an inquiry office.
"Can you tell me if Miss Rowan is employed here?" Rowan asked.
"Yes, but you can't see her," the small boy answered. "She's in with the
guv'nor now."
Rowan hesitated. "Perhaps you will kindly tell her, when she is
disengaged," he said, "that her brother is here, and would like to speak
to her for a moment."
The office-boy withdrew his head, but he seemed uncertain. Rowan seated
himself upon a hard bench set against the wall. On a small round table
in front of him were pens and paper and a copy of the trade journal.
Rowan turned over its pages listlessly for a moment or two, and then set
himself down to wait. It was quite half-an-hour before a door in front
of him opened, and Winifred Rowan appeared. She looked at her brother in
blank astonishment. She was paler than ever, there were dark rings under
her dilated eyes. She looked at him as one looks upon some strange
monstrosity.
"Basil!" she murmured. "It can't be you! And yet--Basil!"
"It is I," he answered.
"Free?" she cried.
He laughed, a little bitterly. "They have let me out to die," he
answered. "The doctor to-day signed a certificate that I have no
reasonable chance of living longer than another month, so here I am,
free, Winifred, if you like to call it freedom."
She came and sat on the bench by his side. At that moment it was hard to
say, from their appearance, which of the two seemed the nearer death.
"When were you released?" she asked.
"Half-an-hour ago," he answered. "I came straight here. I wondered
whether you could get a month's vacation, and come with me somewhere
south. We have enough money for a little time."
"If they will not let me go," she answered, "I will leave. That is
simple enough. We have enough money, Basil. We will go this afternoon."
He shook his head. "First," he said, "I must see--I must see--"
"Whom?" she asked.
"A friend," he answered, "someone who may be inclined to do something
for me,--not for myself," he added hastily,--"that, of course, is
ridiculous--but it is of you I am thinking, of you after I am gone."
"I shall be all right, Basil," she said. "We have several hundred pounds
left, you know."
"It is not enough," he answered firmly. "Winifred, will you go on an
errand for me?"
"Where to?" she asked, with a sudden sinking of her heart.
"To a man whose address I will give you,--a rich man, a great man. I
think that he will be willing to do something for us. His name is
Stirling Deane. I will write his address down for you."
"Mr. Deane!" she repeated. "I have been before to see him, Basil. I went
before your reprieve came."
"Of course," he said. "I had forgotten. Well, I want you to go up to him
now. I want to see him, but I do not want to go to his offices. Where do
you live, Winifred?"
"It is an apartment house for women only," she answered. "I cannot take
you there."
"Then we must go to a hotel," he said. "It seems a mockery to buy
clothes, but there are one or two things I must have. To-morrow we will
go somewhere south."
She glanced at the clock. "I will see whether I can get away now," she
said.
She disappeared, and came out again in a few minutes with her hat on.
"Come," she said.
He led her to the cab outside. "We will drive to a hotel," he said.
"When we have taken some rooms, you shall go and see Mr. Deane. I think
that he will come to me if you will tell him that I am free, that I have
only three weeks to live, and that I should like to see him."
"Very well," she answered.
They stepped into the cab. "Tell him to drive to one of the large
hotels," Rowan said,--"any except the Universal."
She shuddered as she gave the order. She, too, had her memories of the
Universal, of which he knew nothing. Slowly they made their way
westwards. The girl held his hand in hers.
"It is good to see you again, Basil," she said.
"It is good to be here again," he answered, "to be out in the world,
even though it be to die. I suppose the authorities have really been
kind to me. It is as much as anyone could expect. And yet, Winifred, I
should like you to remember this always. The quarrel between Sinclair
and myself was of his seeking--not mine. The blow of which he died was
struck purely in self-defence. I could box and he couldn't, or he would
have half killed me that night."
"I know," she answered breathlessly. "Don't talk of it."
He went on, as though not hearing her. "He came at me with both hands
clenched, and I hit him under the chin. I had to, or he would have
killed me if he could. He was a strong man, and he had been drinking
until he was half mad. It was not my fault, Winifred."
"Oh, I know that!" she said. "Try and forget it now. It was a wicked,
wicked accident."
"Life has been wicked enough for you and me lately," he answered,
sighing. "You are worn to a shadow, Winifred. I suppose it is this
wretched typing, day by day. We must put an end to it."
She shook her head. "I must earn a living, dear," she said. "But don't
bother about me. I shall be all right. See, he has stopped. This must
be--yes, it is the Grand Hotel. Will that do?"
He nodded. "Quite well," he answered.
He paid the cabman, and making some excuse at the office about luggage
to come, took rooms. Then he put Winifred into a hansom, and wrote down
for her Deane's address, which she already knew.
"Bring him back with you if you can," he begged. "Bring him back here. I
shall be waiting in the reading-room, just round the corner there to the
right."
She hesitated. "You look so faint, Basil," she said. "I am not sure
whether I ought to leave you."
"I am going to have some brandy and milk," he answered. "I am going to
sit down and have it there in that corner. I shall wait till you come.
You will know where to look for me. Hurry, dear, please. I shall know no
peace until I have seen Deane."